Harlem Health Center To Be Bulldozed For Housing, Surprising Neighbors

HARLEM, NY — The city's hospital system plans to demolish a prominent Hamilton Heights medical center and replace it with a supportive housing development, stunning some neighbors who fear it could cause a loss of health services.

Plans for redeveloping the health center, a brick building that spans a full block of Amsterdam Avenue between West 145th and 146th streets, were detailed during a Sept. 8 meeting by Community Board 9 — organized after the appearance of dumpsters outside the clinic sparked questions about its future.

A representative for New York City Health + Hospitals, which controls the site, said tentative plans call for a roughly nine-story building containing 200 apartments to be built there. It will not include a homeless shelter, contrary to some local rumors, officials said.

While some of the existing clinics hope to return to the future building, community leaders say they have learned that the facilities will be squeezed into a much smaller space and forced to pay more rent, potentially hampering their level of care.

Among those is the Emma Bowen Center, a mental health provider that has rented space in the building for more than 35 years. Emma Bowen has secured funding to relocate a few blocks away during construction, and is negotiating a possible return with the new building's developers, the clinic's board chair said last week.

But some neighbors expressed outrage that they were not notified earlier about the new development, which has been in the works since as far back as 2019, according to the Emma Bowen representative.

"I'm a little shocked, surprised, that we were not made aware of this," community board member Victor Edwards said during the meeting.

The board later learned that the medical centers would be relegated to just 17,000 square feet in the new project, compared to more than 50,000 square feet in their current building, CB9 Chair Barry Weinberg told Patch this week — an outcome that would be difficult to square with the high demand for mental health services in the neighborhood.

The providers will also be asked to pay roughly twice their current rent, according to Weinberg.

"We’ve concluded that that’s unacceptable," Weinberg said.

Demand "Through The Roof"

The fate of the medical center's other tenants appears mixed. Ralph K. Jackson, an optometrist, is also discussing a potential return to the newly developed building, but Heritage Health Care Center, a primary care clinic, has told Health + Hospitals that it would not come back, according to Weinberg.

After this article was published, a Heritage representative told Patch that the facility has no plans to close permanently, but instead hopes to move its services into another building that it owns just a few blocks away.

Heritage hopes to work with the city to ensure that the neighborhood does not lose out on any care, the representative added.

The Bowen Center has been given a move-out date of March 2023, Weinberg said.

Deborah Brown, a senior vice president at Health + Hospitals, apologized to the board for not having revealed the project before last week's meeting, saying they had been waiting to finalize more details before making the development public.

A priority, she said, was "ensuring that there is no diminution of services" from the clinics.

"We are here to serve the community and we really do believe this will be good for the community and for our patients," she said.

Developed by the nonprofit Bowery Residents' Committee, the new building would consist mostly of permanent supportive housing for people referred by the city hospital system, according to Miguel Guadalupe, a representative for the developers.

About 40 percent of the 200 apartments would be standard affordable housing, listed through a city housing lottery and available to people making below 60 percent of the area median income — roughly $56,000 for a single person, Guadalupe said. Residents of Community District 9 would be given preference for half of those 40 units.

Affordable and supportive housing has long been named by CB9 as among the neighborhood's top needs, and some board members acknowledged last week that the project would put a dent in West Harlem's shortage of affordable units — though the board has no formal power to approve or reject it.

The new building will not include a homeless shelter, according to the presenters who spoke last week. Misinformation circulating in the neighborhood had forced the developers and Health + Hospitals to divulge their plans prematurely, they suggested.

"Someone decided to create facts and basically scare people," Guadalupe said, adding that developers had planned to reveal the project by this fall.

As the development looms, an Emma Bowen representative said that no practitioners have departed the clinic — though he was unsure whether any patients have been turned away.

Board members were also skeptical of Brown's belief that the new development would not need to go through the months-long ULURP review process that requires input from the community board and local officials — normally a required step when city-owned land is leased or sold. (Brown said Health + Hospitals only expects a single vote by the City Council on the project's lease.)

In a statement sent after this article was published, a Health + Hospitals spokesperson said the organization believes "that housing is fundamental to health, which is why we are striving to use our property for permanent affordable and supportive housing."

"We intend that this will house members of the community and our patients," the statement reads. "We will continue working diligently with the elected officials, Community Board, and other local partners to keep them engaged about the project and its status."

Edwin Torres, another board member who spoke during the meeting, noted that demand for the Bowen Center's mental health services was already "through the roof" during the pandemic, and feared that the development could compromise its mission.

"The center has a responsibility to the community," he said.

Have a Harlem news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.