PARKWAY’S NEXT LIFE: CLUB FED?

As the fate of two Queens hospital sites was sealed, the owner of a dormant Forest Hills medical facility waged a losing fight to reopen.

Parkway Hospital’s owner and CEO, Dr. Robert Aquino, unsuccessfully sought an injunction that would allow the Forest Hills facility to reopen immediately, claiming that the state acted improperly in closing the hospital without the benefit of due process.

A hearing was held at 10 a.m. at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20.

According to Mark Fogel, the chief of staff of the legal team representing the hospital, if the injunction was granted, an urgent care center could have reopened in 24 hours, a community hospital would have been up and running in two to three weeks, and the remainder of the hospital would have been operational in two to three months.

Certain portions of the hospital, such as the hyperbariatric pressure facility, are still running.

Fogel also warned that if the injunction is not granted, the hospital will be foreclosed upon, and the lender will give the facility to the federal government. Documents sent to the Times Newsweekly revealed that according to Parkway’s court-appointed receiver, the most likely use of the facility would be as a low-level federal penitentiary or as a halfway house for illegal immigrants.

“The community can scream all they want,” Fogel stated.

Disgraced former state assemblyman Anthony Seminerio was scheduled to testify but reportedly did not; a presentencing hearing took place Tuesday in the courtroom immedi- ately adjacent to the Parkway hearing to allow him to be in both places at once

Fogel called the state of Parkway Hospital—and the potential future use of the site—“Seminerio’s legacy.”

Meanwhile, on Friday, Oct. 16, the sites on which St. John’s Queens and Mary Immaculate hospitals stood have been sold to the highest bidder in a bankruptcy auction. The winner was identified as Brooklyn-based Guttman Realty.

The properties were reportedly sold at a total price of $26.625 million; they were originally valued at a total of $17.85 million.

According to CB Richard Ellis, the firm handling the auction sale, the St. John’s site in Elmhurst may become office space, while there are “several options” being evaluated for the Mary Immaculate site in Jamaica, including an educational facility, non-profit organization use, government operations or a religious facility.