Demolition of old Brunswick Hospital eyed

Demolition of Brunswick Hospital Center's defunct main building in Amityville could start in April, with other buildings to follow, officials said.

Amityville officials acknowledge that demolishing the structures will likely slash a key source of village revenue: property taxes paid by landowner BH Realty Group, whose $359,000 bill last year made it the village's largest taxpayer.

Officials declined to forecast the size of the potential loss, which would occur in the 2013 tax year and would depend on an assessment of the property scheduled for later this year. But village attorney Bruce Kennedy said it would be "significant," given that improvements like buildings are typically valued far more than the land.

Village officials say unused buildings on the sprawling Broadway property have been an eyesore since the hospital began shutting down operations in 2005.

J. Stewart McLaughlin, acting president of Brunswick Medical Center Inc., said the hospital also plans to demolish an unused nursing home and rehabilitation center on hospital grounds, but no date has been set. The company will continue to operate Brunswick Hall, a psychiatric care facility there.

"They're doing this [the demolition] to make it more attractive and to reduce real property taxes pending a sale of the premises," said McLaughlin. He would not say if potential buyers had expressed interest.

In the short term, Trustee Rich Ubert said, demolition would likely increase the burden on village taxpayers. Ubert said he favors some sort of business use for the centrally located property, which could provide services and jobs to Amityville residents. "It could be the focal point of the village."

The 477-bed Brunswick Hospital once employed about 1,400 people. It was privately owned by the family of Benjamin Stein, a radiologist who took it over in the early 1950s. Stein's real estate holdings surrounding the hospital were once valued at more than $40 million, court records show.

But the hospital went into bankruptcy in 1992, and continued to be dogged by financial problems after it emerged two years later.

By the mid-2000s, it was at the center of a thicket of lawsuits as competing interests -- creditors, would-be purchasers, real estate developers and members of Stein's family -- maneuvered for control.

Village trustees complained of nuisance calls and vandalism there in recent years, pressing BH Realty and its principal, Dr. Amar Singh, to demolish and redevelop.

McLaughlin said the demolition had been delayed by a dispute between parties claiming to be beneficiaries of the property, developer Ted Doukas and Douglas Stein, Benjamin Stein's son. The parties have a pending court case.