By Albert Amateau
The Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce has voted to support the St. Vincent’s Hospital/Rudin Organization plan for a new state-of-the-art medical center.
The chamber, founded in 1949 and boasting more than 300 business members with more than 30,000 employees, voted to support the project in December.
The chamber’s resolution supporting the project says, “St. Vincent’s has embarked on a very open process to educate the public about the need to build a new hospital and has presented facts that clearly indicate that renovation of existing buildings is neither practical nor wise from a financial perspective, and that the construction of a new hospital is needed in order to meet the needs of the community and for state certification from the Department of Health.”
The resolution notes St. Vincent’s, which employs 3,600 people, serves about 200,000 people annually, offers thousands of free flu shots, cancer and heart disease screenings and health forums to people who live and work in the area and provides emergency room service the West Side. The chamber also cited St. Vincent’s capability of emergency preparedness for disaster.
The chamber also supports St. Vincent’s decision to finance the new hospital by selling its main campus to Rudin for residential development: “The cost of building a modern, state-of-the-art medical center is very expensive, and St. Vincent’s must maximize its assets to minimize the long-term burden of carrying costs,” the resolution says.
