From left: Mark Weiss, vice chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, 1290 Sixth Avenue and 14 East 103rd Street (credit: PropertyShark)Buoyed by an aging population, new government initiatives and, in some cases, the struggling economy, health care industry real estate activity in the city has doubled over the last year, according to the New York Times.

This year there have been 42 new leases and renewals totaling more than 1.2 million square feet, according to Cushman & Wakefield, compared to 25 transactions and 550,700 square feet in 2010, and 16 deals for 176,311 square feet in 2009.

Many of these deals, including ColumbiaDoctors’ 25-year lease for 120,000 square feet at 1290 Sixth Avenue, with rights of first offer for additional space, were spurred by an expected increase in demand stemming from President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the Times said. [more]

Rose Associates, a developer and manager of both residential and commercial real estate, has been tapped to serve as property manager for Mount Sinai Medical Center’s residential real estate holdings. The properties — including more than 1,700 apartments in various buildings across the Upper East Side — are used mostly as staff housing. The 2 million-square-foot portfolio is spread across 25 different buildings. [more]

St. Vincent’s Hospital, the struggling Greenwich Village institution that for the past several months has been fighting to stay open despite $700 million in debt and $10 million in monthly operating losses, will shutter its inpatient unit after a vote by the hospital’s board last night, Crain’s reported. Elective procedures will stop in two days’ time and other services, save an urgent care center, will be phased out over the next few weeks. The vote clears the way for a Chapter 11 filing. If a partner can be found during the bankruptcy process, the urgent care center could remain open. Mount Sinai Medical Center and Continuum Health Partners had previously expressed interest in taking over the hospital, but lenders GE Capital and TD Bank resisted forcing the hospital into bankruptcy, and each of the potential acquirers backed out as the task of returning the St. Vincent’s to profitability loomed large. Governor David Paterson said in a statement that the state Department of Health would seek proposals for partners in St. Vincent’s new, limited care services. [Crain’s]

From left: Richard LeFrak, Karen LeFrak, Michael Bronson, chief of roint replacement at Mount Sinai, Rick Friedberg, Francine LeFrak, Peter May, Evan Flatow, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai Medical Center recently celebrated its new Joint Replacement Center at 5 East 98th Street, where construction was completed in the second week of December. The 5,000-square-foot space, which takes up half of the building’s seventh floor, was formerly occupied by the Department of Ophthalmology, now located in the Annenberg Pavilion at 1468 Madison Avenue. Also unveiled at last month’s reception was the new Samuel and Ethel LeFrak Center for Patient Education, housed within the joint replacement unit. The LeFrak family donated an undisclosed amount to create its eponymous center, complete with HDTV monitors to display post-surgical information and videos, and was on hand at the reception to celebrate the new space. TRD [more]

The competitive pool for a partnership with cash-strapped Lenox Hill
Hospital shrunk to one yesterday, when NYU Langone Medical Center
withdrew from negotiations, leaving only North Shore-Long Island
Jewish Health System in the running. NYU had been seeking a complete merger
with Lenox Hill, which would have removed control from the bulk of
Lenox Hill’s current administrators, while promoting many Lenox Hill
clinical department heads, but Lenox Hill declined to consider such an arrangement.
North Shore-LIJ’s proposal, which would affiliate the two facilities
while leaving Lenox Hill administrators in place, would not save the
hospital as much money. Lenox Hill had a $20 million operating loss last year. Nearby Mount Sinai Hospital had also expressed interest in a
merger with Lenox Hill but was never invited to submit a proposal
[Crain's]