PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Upper Darby School District has officially purchased the shuttered Delaware County Memorial Hospital campus from bankrupt Prospect Medical Holdings.
The hospital, which neighbors Upper Darby High School, has been vacant since November 2022. The school district finalized the purchase late last week.
“We were heavily invested in there being a hospital remaining in the community. It wasn’t until this hospital venture became obsolete that we looked at this property,” explained Upper Darby Superintendent Dr. Daniel McGarry.
The district’s short-term plan is to tear down the 66,000-square-foot hospital and two other buildings on the campus.
“We had to purchase the hospital and then we had to also buy a group called Ventas that had owned several floors. The hospital was about $600,000, then about $370,000 for Ventas,” he said. “We do not believe in any way we can use the current space, unfortunately.”
He hopes the space can one day serve a myriad of purposes.
“The long-term plan is to obviously use that space for the high school to alleviate the overcrowding — 4,400 students that go to the high school — and create a sort of STEM building so that we can provide those more advanced learning opportunities for our students,” said McGarry.
He said the demolition and construction of a new facility will be a multi-year project.
Featured Image Photo Credit: Tim Jimenez/KYW Newsradio, file