Long Island College Hospital has been saved from the brink of closure once again after Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised that $62 million in state grants allocated under the David Paterson administration would not fall through, the Daily News reported. The troubled Cobble Hill hospital said last week that it was in danger of closing next month, after state officials hinted that they might reverse the funding pledge intended to help it merge with SUNY Downstate Medical Center. The funding was part of a $683 million pool of health grants that Cuomo had targeted for reconsideration. [more]

Renderings of the life science complex

City officials and developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities unveiled a new, 310,000-square-foot science park today at 450 East 29th Street, the first of the collaborators’ three planned life science facilities for a vacant stretch of land along First Avenue. The Alexandria Center for Life Science, located on a three-acre, city-owned site, has benefited from millions in city, state and federal funding. TRD [more]

Cobble Hill’s debt-laden Long Island College Hospital is merging with SUNY Downstate Medical Center of Crown Heights, pending approval by the state. The hospital’s current operator, Continuum Health Partners, has already approved the plan, which will fend off the facility’s closure after a year of uncertainty. LICH is $170 million in debt and in 2008, it sold several buildings, laid off hundreds of employees and had proposed shuttering its maternity, pediatrics and dentistry departments. There is no timeline for the merger as of yet, hospital officials said. Continuum, which also operates St. Luke’s and Roosevelt hospitals in Manhattan, recently submitted a proposal to take over St. Vincent’s Hospital in the West Village. Continuum’s plan would convert St. Vincent’s it into a community health center and significantly scaling back emergency services. [Brooklyn Paper]