Ellis Medicine announced Wednesday that its board of directors has approved the sale of the former St. Clare’s Hospital campus to a development team led by Jeff Buell, managing director of Redburn Development Partners, and Chris Spraragen, owner of Schenectady Hardware and Electric.
The development team plans to preserve the main hospital building on the site and keep Ellis’ Belanger School of Nursing there while the rest of the complex is converted to residential development.
Paul Milton, president and CEO of Ellis Medicine, said Thursday that the land deal is expected to close within the next two to three months.
The hospital announced in June that it was closing the 82-bed nursing home. Ellis has been working for the past two months to place the remaining 50 residents in facilities within a 50-mile radius.
Milton said Thursday that there is one patient left in the nursing home who is expected to be transferred by the end of August.
Ellis Medicine has owned the campus since 2008. Before its closure, the nursing home employed 75 people. Three-quarters of the nursing home employees were transferred to other positions within the organization.
As the hospital group moved services from the McClellan Street campus to Ellis Hospital and Bellevue Woman’s Center in recent years, the McClellan Street campus was 80% vacant. Ellis Medicine had annual costs of $5 million to operate the campus.
Closure of Ellis Medicine nursing home progresses (6/2024)
Milton said Thursday that retaining ownership of the 18-acre complex did not fit into Ellis Medicine’s overall facility plan, leading to the sale of the property.
“The maintenance costs are significant, so from a financial standpoint we’re trying to reduce the maintenance costs on that property,” Milton said. “So that was one of the main reasons for that. As mentioned in the press release yesterday (Wednesday), we still have the nursing school back there, we own that building. And that’s going to stay. And then there’s a building up front that’s a doctor’s office building. We don’t own that and that’s going to stay. We’re tenants there with some services, so we’re going to continue to be tenants in that building.”
Terms of the sale were not disclosed; Milton noted that he expects the sale to close within a few months.
He said the nursing home has historically operated at 90% or more of the site’s 82-bed capacity, with additional beds becoming available over the past two years as Ellis Medicine considered closing the site and stopped accepting more admissions. There were 50 residents at the facility in June.
The Ellis Residential and Rehabilitation Center is to be closed (6/2024)
Milton said the nursing home met with residents’ families before closing and worked to relocate all residents.
“So we didn’t really get any pushback because we were very supportive of the residents in finding their next place,” Milton said. “And then we held town hall meetings, even for people from the affected neighborhoods or for family members who came to us. That’s the kind of thing we did with the administration. So they understood why we were doing something and how we were going to do it to help their family members move.”
The Ellis Residential and Rehabilitation Center is to be closed (6/2024)
Closure of Ellis Medicine nursing home progresses (6/2024)
Ellis Medicine approves sale of McClellan Street campus to developer
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