Allison Kunitz and Ella Adams, State House news ServiceAugust 07, 2026<\/p>\n
Massachusetts have given the current owner of the shuttered Norwood Hospital until Nov. 1 to sell the property, or the state will take it by eminent domain.<\/p>\n
Gov. Maura Healey on Friday signed into law a bill that enables the state to take the property and partially rebuilt facility.<\/p>\n
The law exerts pressure on Medical Properties Trust, an Alabama-based real estate investment trust that owns the property, to make a deal before the state steps in and takes the land. Lawmakers passed the bill on the last day of scheduled formal sessions last Friday and shipped it to Healey’s desk.<\/p>\n
The governor on Friday blamed Norwood Hospital’s former operator, Steward Health Care and former CEO Ralph de la Torre, for delays that impacted the town and residents.<\/p>\n
“Now, we need MPT to do the right thing and come to a reasonable agreement with a qualified operator who can rebuild the hospital. Our administration will be closely following their progress and will be prepared to act if MPT does not follow through,” she said.<\/p>\n
Healey’s signature brings the Steward bankruptcy saga nearly to a close in Massachusetts. Norwood Hospital shuttered in 2020 due to catastrophic flooding, and construction to rebuild the site came to a halt when Steward went bankrupt. MPT, Steward’s landlord, continues to own the property and says it has invested more than $350 million into rebuilding the hospital.<\/p>\n
On the House floor late last Friday, Rep. John Rogers of Norwood told MPT, “Get out of Massachusetts.”<\/p>\n
The law directs the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance to conduct a competitive bidding process for a nonprofit healthcare operator. DCAMM is instructed to delay that process or any land taking if a sale, lease or agreement between MPT and a healthcare operator “appears likely to result in near-term execution.” The law takes effect Nov. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allison Kunitz and Ella Adams, State House news ServiceAugust 07, 2026 Massachusetts have given the current owner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-401907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}