Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
NORWOOD, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — More than four years after a fateful June rainstorm set Norwood Hospital tottering down the path to oblivion, the skeleton of a building rises over the center of town. The outside is nearing completion, but easily visible from Washington Street is the inside – or lack thereof, as it is utterly empty, aside from a handful of construction lights. Now, local officials and the hospital’s owner say a working hospital is closer to reality – but the market will dictate just how close.
Before the flood that shuttered the hospital, it was run by Steward Health Care – the beleaguered provider which filed for bankruptcy this year and was forced to sell off four hospitals and let Massachusetts take possession of one other. Two other hospitals, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, are also set to close by the end of August.
Frustration has been on the rise in the intervening years, as the pandemic, then Steward’s financial peril slowed construction to a crawl. That’s sent ambulances that were Norwood-bound scrambling to find other emergency rooms as far away as Boston, placing some patients in dire medical straits.
“That timeline has gone from ten minutes to the ER, to 30, 40, 50 minutes to the ER,” said Norwood General Manager Tony Mazzucco.
In an interview with WBZ NewsRadio, he explained why everything was taking so long, and how long the town could be expected to wait until the doors of Norwood Hospital are open once more.
Hurry Up and Wait: The Timeline
First things first. Though Steward was the operator of Norwood Hospital when it was operational, Mazzucco said the company actually has very little to do with Steward.
“They still technically have the license from DPH [The Department of Public Health,] but they’re effectively not in the process anymore, which is why Norwood Hospital wasn’t included in the bankruptcy sale – Steward didn’t have a hospital in Norwood to go bankrupt,” he said.
Instead, right now, the owner is an Alabama-based company called Medical Properties Trust. Mazzucco explained the reason why construction has slowed to an idle is that MPT is intentionally only building the outside of the hospital building.
“What they’re really doing is sealing up the building, and finishing the rooftop units and what’s required of the HVAC system to just keep the shell of the building going,” he said.
He explained that was because MPT doesn’t actually want to hang onto the property. Their goal is to find someone to lease or outright buy the future hospital, at which point the buyer or lessee can customize the inside of the building themselves. This could make it more attractive to a buyer who wants a specific layout.
Mazzucco said if construction crews began building the hospital at full speed, it would take them about 18 months to finish. But those 18 months will only begin once MPT has a buyer or lessee to take over the property. He said he expects a deal will be in the works relatively soon – sometime between September and the next six months. That means the hospital is at least 18 months to two years away from opening depending on when MPT finds a deal.
Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
Tackling Rumor
But the rumor mill has been working around town that MPT doesn’t intend to sell the half-spital to a medical company at all. Instead, the rumor says the company will sell the property to a housing developer, depriving the area of a hospital for good.
Mazzucco said this scenario was deeply unlikely for several reasons. First, he said, was sunk cost. MPT has already poured millions into the project, when the land the once-and-future hospital is being built on is only worth $5-6 million in and of itself. Indeed, a spokesperson for MPT confirmed the company has spent more than $220 million on the project altogether. So if MPT decided to build housing, it would be at many times the market rate.
“To try and convert a building that was designed as a hospital to housing, you’d be spending more on that conversion than you would just building new,” Mazzucco said. He said it would make no sense to try a conversion on the land when much cheaper land is available nearby.
Second is the regulatory hurdles, which the general manager said would pose an incredible hassle to any developer looking to make the half-finished building into housing.
However, he did concede that the conversion, technically, was possible – if prohibitively costly.
“Theoretically, everything’s possible. Warren Buffet could come in tomorrow, but the property from them, and turn it into a park. But the likelihood of that happening is zero, to nil,” he said.
The Effects
Besides the primary effect of losing its hospital, Norwood (and the surrounding communities) have suffered economic losses from the closure. The general manager pointed to doctors’ offices moving out of town. That means people traveling further – including Mazzucco, who had to move his doctor to Needham.
There’s been an impact on local businesses, too. The hospital employed 1100 people, who were a consistent driver of the town economy, which now must go without. But Mazzucco stressed a key problem is that it takes longer to get to an emergency room.
“So imagine you’re in that life-threatening situation… and that time has doubled and tripled. We know that’s going to have an impact on people’s health outcomes,” he said.
MPT Responds
A spokesperson for MPT said the company has “received indications of interest from several non-Steward parties,” for Norwood Hospital, but that “any transaction will ultimately need to be approved by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.”
Asked if Steward’s deal to sell off its hospitals had any impact on getting the Norwood project up and running, the spokesperson replied, “No.”
WBZ’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CschaffelWBZ) reports.
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