THIRD TIME LUCKY?
Nonprofit group latest to take shot at redeveloping abandoned hospital
TROY, N.Y. >> As it wraps up its conversion of a former furniture warehouse into riverfront apartments, a developer is now turning its attention a longtime eyesore at the city’s northern border.
At a Wednesday night meeting of the City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, representatives from The Community Builders, a nonprofit developer with offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati and Washington, presented plans to demolish the abandoned Leonard Hospital building on New Turnpike Road and replace it with as many as 120 mixed-income apartments. Council members said this would be the third recent proposal to buy the property from the city, which took ownership about five years ago through tax foreclosure.
“We’ve been looking at a number of potential sites, and the city urged us to take a look at the old Leonard Hospital,” explained Tim O’Byrne, project manager for The Community Builders, which has developed several residential properties in Albany, Schenectady and Cohoes, as well as Troy.
Under the developer’s proposal, it would buy the property from the city for $1, then work with the city to arrange state and federal funding, mainly state Low-Income Housing Tax Credits used primarily to entice funding sources to invest in a project, O’Byrne
explained. The city would not be asked for any direct funding, he said, only for its endorsement of the developer’s funding applications.
Once financing is in place and the hospital demolished, The Community Builders’ plan is to replace the building with a four- or five-story building that would house 60 to 80 apartments, including 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom units, as well as a community room, computer labs and laundry facilities. The remaining apartments would be garden- style units, possible townhouses, with as many as 40 planned for a separate building on the 6.40acre lot on the Schaghticoke town line.
Sue McCann, vice president of development for The Community Builders, said the apartments would be about evenly divided between low- and moderateincome units, with sup- portive services such as counseling, case management and job or life-skills training available for lowincome tenants through a partnership with Unity House.
Two previous proposals fell through largely because of the condition of the building, which has been unused since the hospital was closed in 1996 as part of a state program to consolidate health-care services. Where other developers have not been able to take on such a demanding project, though, council members said they believe The Community Builders has a better chance of making it happen, pointing to their revival of the former Mooradian’s building on River Street into Tapestry on the Hudson, a $22 million, mixed-income apartment building that will be formally unveiled at a June 6 ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“This is a firm that has the ability to take on a project like this, as they’ve shown in their other projects,” said committee Chairman Dean Bodnar, R-District 3.
O’Byrne told council members the project is especially challenging because of the presence of asbestos throughout the building, which opened in 1970. Preliminary estimates for removing the asbestos alone from the 120,000-square-foot building are in the range of $1.7 million to $2 million, with demolition expected to cost another half-million dollars.
“The building is pretty much covered in asbestos,” O’Byrne said.
While committee members agreed mixed-income housing may not be optimal for the largely residential neighborhood, they agreed it is better than to simply leave the hospital standing.
“There’s no developer that’s going to get behind a $2.5 million 8-ball and try to make a profit,” said Councilman Mark McGrath, R-District 2. “The only other option is to let the building stand and rot.
That isn’t a viable option, either, as the city has been the target of several lawsuits filed by people who have been injured after illegally entering the building. Most recently, a 17-year-old girl was critically injured in July 2016 after she fell 20 feet from a ledge outside the building.
“It’s been a terrible liability to the city,” Bodnar said. “No matter how we shore it up to keep people from getting in there, they somehow do.”
It will remain a liability for a while, though, even if the project does come to fruition. O’Byrne said it would likely take as long as 18 months to line up financing before demolition can even begin.
Committee members had hoped to vote to recommend the proposal approval by the entire council at its next regular meeting on June 1, but a formal resolution was not ready Wednesday and will instead be put on the agenda for an upcoming meeting of the council’s Finance Committee.