Macklowe plans on medical conversion for FiDi tower: VIDEO

Billy Macklowe plans to turn his newly-purchased Financial District office building into a medical facility, he told Bloomberg TV’s Betty Liu.

The buy marked a departure from Macklowe’s recent laser-like focus on Midtown South, but he said the choice was representative of his company’s approach of investing in surprising assets ahead of a more widely-perceived value trend.

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“It’s a commercial building, but we have a little bit of a different twist with what we’re going to do with the asset,” Macklowe told Liu. “We’re going to convert it to medical.”

The property, he went on to say, is in a prime location across from New York Presbyterian Hospital. And since St. Vincent’s Hospital closed in 2010 and has now reemerged as a 10-building condominium conversion dubbed Greenwich Lane, there has been no acute care facility south of 14th Street in Manhattan.

“It really all points to why that should be a very good medical deal,” he said. [Bloomberg News]Julie Strickland