UPDATED — June 18, 1:43 p.m.
John Rodriguez, Mayor of the City of Greater Sudbury, has released a statement regarding the sale of the former St. Joseph's Health Centre. You can read it here in .pdf form.
Original Story
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Sault Ste. Marie have broken their silence regarding the sale of the former St. Joseph's Health Centre site.
In the letter, Sister Bonnie MacLellan, the General Superior of the order, explains the sequence of events leading to the sale. The prohibitive cost of upgrading the site to meet current and expected guidelines for a continuining care center and the cost of demolition and the exclusion of demolition from the province's promise to pay decommissioning costs were cited as two large factors in the decision to sell.
MacLellan wrote it was "surprising and disappointing that elected city officials have deemed it appropriate to comment on the Sisters' motivation for selling the property to an outside developer," as they had held off on making a public announcement until they had spoken to the city mayor.
She also notes city staff were advised the Sisters were expecting to accept an as-is offer by 5 p.m. on May 31, and that staff reassured the Sisters the mayor would be notified. She said no one from the city had contacted the Sisters, so they accepted the offer around 4 p.m.
A previous offer by the city, tendered in 2006 when the Sisters were accepting proposals for the site, was declined along with the others as all presentations required the old hospital to be demolished.
MacLellan does not name the new owner of the property in her letter, but notes the buyer made three unsolicited offers for
the site, first as a "greenfield" site, then as-is after the Sisters declined the offer. A third offer, which was eventually accepted, was tendered after the Sisters made a counter-offer on the second offer.
The term "greenfield" refers to a site where the building has been demolished, and the property cleaned of any possible contaminants. But with the province not covering the cost of demolition, as was originally understood by the Sisters to be part of the decommissioning cost, the cost of demolishing the building was costly.
The province would cover the cost, but would recover it by taking it from the profits of the property's sale. .
In her letter, the Sister notes the city was kept appraised of the status of the property through city staff. She said city staff were present during meetings with the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in the 10 years since the province ordered the hospitals amalgamated. This included the May meeting this year, where the demolition cost was addressed.
When the three city hospitals, the General Hospital, Memorial Hospital, and Laurentian Hospital, were ordered by the province to merge in 1997, the Sisters agreed to continue to run the General as St. Joseph's Health Centre until the new site was completed, leasing the site to the hospital for $1 a year. Though planned to last two years, the lease extended the 13 years it took for the amalgamation to complete.
The site was closed in March this year when the last patient was relocated to the new one-site hospital at the former Laurentian Hospital site.
