Daryl Hagler Sells Another Nursing Home to Chuny Herzka

Daryl Hagler is not done dealing nursing homes to Chuny Herzka’s Emerald Healthcare.

The controversial owner sold the 372-bed Richmond Center in Staten Island’s Clifton neighborhood for $82 million, Crain’s reported. The deal closed last month and is likely tied to Emerald’s plan to spend $1.7 billion acquiring the Centers Healthcare portfolio, the Promote previously reported.

A Hagler affiliate purchased the four-story, 129,000-square-foot — as well as the adjacent parking lot — in 2012 for $15 million. Hagler and Herzka’s firms did not respond to a request for comment from the outlet.

Just last month, Lakewood-based Emerald paid $161 million for a Boro Park nursing home from Hagler’s Centers Healthcare, along with two other Brooklyn nursing home facilities for a combined total of $290 million. That deal was financed by a $240 million loan administered by Huntington Bank.

All of those buildings had a rapid appreciation in value since Hagler bought them, similar to that of the Staten Island property that traded hands.

Centers, which is owned by Hagler and Kenneth Rozenberg, operates more than 45 nursing homes with a majority located in New York. But Hagler appears to be getting out of the nursing home business after scandal plagued the owner in recent years.

In 2024, Hagler and Rozenberg settled a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James for $45 million. The attorney general alleged the business partners used more than $83 million in Medicaid and Medicare funds to enrich themselves while residents faced horrific living conditions.

In January, the state of New Jersey sued Hagler and Rozenberg, as well 31 additional family members, after an investigation uncovered they diverted tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds to themselves. The lawsuit alleged the two operators were “exploiting the operation” of the Deptford Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare and Hammonton Center, alleging pervasive, systemic and longstanding violations and profiteering.

— Holden Walter-Warner