UPMC Braddock hospital could be leveled by summer
Braddock hospital is likely to be razed before July, and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will help pay for a new development on the site, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato announced today.
Though Onorato would still like to keep a hospital on the site, county officials and a consultant they hired have received no interest from other hospital systems to work there. UPMC has agreed to pay for the demolition. A new building there could cost around $24 million, including space for the Community College of Allegheny County and expanding a Braddock health clinic.
"The worst thing that could happen a year from now is to have an abandoned UPMC hospital ... unused and boarded up," Onorato said. "If there is nobody interested in putting a hospital there, we have to be prepared to have something on that site."
UPMC officials announced in October that they would close the 123-bed hospital Jan. 31. That left county officials little time to establish a plan and its details could still change, Onorato said.
Primary Care Health Services, a clinic now across the street from the hospital, would be the building's anchor tenant. Without the hospital there, the wait for an appointment at Primary Care has stretched to about a month, executive director Wilford Payne said. The clinic would like to expand, but has no details on how many jobs it might add.
The project will also include about 90 units for seniors, a third of which will be assisted living. The county has helped fund a similar senior living development across the street, to take advantage of the hospital, and that development will continue despite the closing, county officials said.
CCAC's Braddock Hills Center is also growing and could add vocational classes for the heath care industry on the old hospital site, the system's President Alex Johnson said. It could also have high school enrichment classes to help stem the region's dropout rate, he added.
Among several concessions, UPMC will pay about $5 million for demolition which will likely happen by the summer, Onorato said. It costs $240,000 per month to maintain the empty hospital, making it too costly for the county to maintain, and likely prompting UPMC to act quickly, Onorato said.
UPMC will contribute another $3 million for new construction so the county can receive matching dollars from the state, Onorato said. The county will likely contribute from its own budget, too, but officials are not sure yet how much, Economic Development Director Dennis Davin said.
New construction will bring tax credits with it, making the project more feasible than retrofitting, Davin added. Retrofitting the current building could cost as much as $25 million, plus more if any environmental problems pop up on site, Onorato said. The building is 270,000 total square feet, and most of it would likely be left vacant in any attempt to reuse the building, Davin said.
Some Braddock-area residents and legislators have railed against any plan to raze the hospital, details of which have trickled out during the past week. Mayor John Fetterman, however, has supported Onorato's efforts and said today the new plan is likely the best option left.
"I think that Dan has done an excellent job with this negotiation," Fetterman said. "Given the environment we have now and the direction this new proposal could take us, I think it's the right thing for the community. And I think it's the best way we can move forward with a situation that could help this community and possibly even give it some health care it didn't have before."
UPMC Braddock was underused by nearby residents, and UPMC officials needed to make a business decision to close it, its officials have said. It lost between $4 million and $12 million in some recent years, according to UPMC court filings.
About 25,000 people used the hospital's emergency room annually, and opponents claim UPMC kept patient numbers low by transferring them to other hospitals. Braddock Council President Jesse Brown has filed a federal civil rights complaint, alleging discrimination. UPMC closed the hospital while building another in Monroeville, a richer area where West Penn Allegheny Health System already operates.
Brown said he had another conference call with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials this afternoon at the same time as the press conference.
Brown, Councilwoman Tina Doose and other residents had pledged at a community meeting Monday night to fight any effort to raze the building for a new development. They could still reject that offer, and the county would not push for the development, Onorato said.
In all, UPMC has agreed to give about $8.5 million on concessions to help soften the blow of closing the hospital. That includes between $60,000 and $90,000 annually for five years directly to Braddock for the loss of wage taxes, Onorato said.
There were 600 employees at UPMC Braddock. Almost 80 percent have retained their jobs elsewhere within the hospital system, Onorato said.
