Hospital Authority Still In Negotiations With Final Bidder To Sell HUMC

Chairwoman of the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority Toni Tomarazzo said on Thursday morning that the recent sale of the Bayonne Medical Center to Alabama-based real estate investment firm Medical Properties Trust Inc will have no bearing .

The Bayonne hospital is partly owned by HUMC Holdo LLC, which is the sole bidder with which the Authority is negotiating.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Hoboken,” Tomarazzo said about the sale of the hospital. “It doesn’t change how I want to negotiate.”

Tomarazzo said that the HMHA is in the 60-day “exclusive negotiations period” with HUMC Holdco LLC, adding that she couldn’t release any more information on other bidders or on what’s in the contract. The 60-day period ends next week.

When the Bayonne hospital was taken over by HUMC Holdco LLC, Tomarazzo said, the agreement included that the hospital would remain open for at least seven years. Tomarazzo said that the Hospital Authority is “insisting for a similar guarantee.”

A release sent out by the HMHA stated: “Despite the common ownership, the potential Hoboken transaction is entirely independent from the Bayonne transaction, and the Authority will only enter into a final agreement with HUMC Holdco that meets the Authority’s key goals of maintaining HUMC as a full-service, acute-care, community hospital.”

In a press release about the transaction, Medical Properties Trust was described as a“self-advised real estate investment trust formed to capitalize on the changing trends in healthcare delivery by acquiring and developing net-leased healthcare facilities.” Medical Properties Trust bought the Bayonne facility for $58 million and is leasing the property back to the hospital.

Medical Properties Trust also invested in a hospital in Dallas. So far this year, the firm has invested $175 million in medical properties, according to the Birmingham News.