SUNY reopens RFPs for Long Island hospital — and critics jeer

SUNY’s reopening of a Request for Proposals for its beleaguered Long Island College Hospital — open only to bidders who participated in the first round — has hospital supporters in an uproar.

Bidders who threw their hats into the ring on the first go-round will now have until Feb. 3 to refine their offers. Any newly interested parties, including new hospital or health care providers, are allowed to jump in.

In a release, SUNY called the reopening a measure to “enhance the openness, transparency and effectiveness of the process,” noting that participating firms will make the terms of their altered proposals public before a final decision is made. But supporters of the Cobble Hill hospital called the restricted second-round little more than an effort to “make their condo proposals look less repugnant,” as Jeff Strabone, spokesperson for the Cobble Hill Association, put it in a statement cited by the Brooklyn Eagle.

SUNY issued the initial RFP in July of 2013, purportedly to “offer health care services at the LICH campus or in the community proximate to LICH consistent with the health care needs of the community,” the university body said at the time. But advocates of the hospital say that round was shrouded in secrecy and slanted towards real estate developers.

Brooklyn Hospital center proposed a plan involving 1,000 mixed-income apartments in January, one month after SUNY set aside a Fortis Property Group proposal to build condominiums and an urgent care facility on the site. [Brooklyn Eagle] — Julie Strickland