“We’re both very optimistic,” Rush, a West Roxbury Democrat, told the Globe, referring to himself and Rogers. “We’re both committed to rebuilding a hospital in the town of Norwood.”
A spokesperson for the Healey administration wasn’t immediately available for comment.
For roughly two years, the massive skeleton of the hospital has stood unfinished in Norwood, an unsightly symbol of the spectacular downfall of its disgraced and bankrupt former operator, Steward Health Care.
The bill would authorize the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance to take the 11-acre property from its owner, Medical Properties Trust, an Alabama real estate investment trust, to ensure public access to health care.
“We’re ecstatic that the Legislature is taking the lead in making this happen,” said Tony Mazzucco, Norwood’s longtime town general manager. “It finally feels like we’ve reached a turning point and we’re on the other side of this long journey to get a hospital back.”
A spokesperson for MPT said the company had no comment. MPT’s website said the company wants to set the record straight on Norwood Hospital although it did not address the possibility of the property’s seizure. MPT says it did not abandon the construction project and that it “has finished the building as much as possible without having a new hospital operator in place.”
“MPT Built the Hospital with its own funds when it could have walked away,” its website says. “Massachusetts Must Work with MPT to Finish the Job.”
Under the bill heading to the House, the process to use eminent domain would begin on Nov. 1. It would involve the state assessing the value of the unfinished hospital and soliciting bids from nonprofit hospital operators who would seek to buy or lease the property.
The Globe reported last month that Mass General Brigham held talks late last year and early this year with MPT to buy the construction site in the hopes of finally completing the project and reopening the hospital.
But MPT sought “flagrantly unreasonable” sums from Mass General Brigham, and the negotiations fizzled out, according to Rogers, who said he had personally encouraged both sides to make a deal. A Mass General Brigham spokesperson declined to comment on the latest development Wednesday.
Norwood Hospital has been closed since June 28, 2020, after a storm in the area dumped nearly six inches of rain in 90 minutes. Flooding destroyed the facility’s electrical room, cutting off power and forcing the evacuation of all patients. The damage was so severe that the hospital, which had about 200 beds, had to be razed.
Steward paid for that, then launched a $375 million project to rebuild the century-old institution. The steel framework of the hospital went up.
But in 2024 Steward, a for-profit national chain, ran out of money, stopped paying its bills, and collapsed in a bankruptcy that made headlines across the country. MPT paid to build a roof, install a heating and cooling system, and add windows and metal panels to seal the structure before winter, the Globe reported last year. Then the work stopped, local officials say. (MPT on its website said “construction has never been ‘paused.’”)
Because Norwood Hospital was closed when Steward declared bankruptcy, and its doctors and nurses had moved elsewhere, it wasn’t among the 31 hospitals nationally that Steward put up for sale. Norwood Hospital’s travails were overshadowed by the broader crisis provoked by Steward’s collapse.
It is the only one of eight former Steward hospitals in Massachusetts whose fate remains unresolved. It served an estimated quarter of a million people in a dozen nearby communities, and local residents say they still intensely feel its absence.
MPT had bought Steward hospitals’ land and buildings in a sale-leaseback deal in 2016. The arrangement left the hospitals on the hook for excessively high rents, weakening them financially before life-threatening lapses in care occurred, a Globe Spotlight Team investigation reported.
The Spotlight Team in 2024 found a pattern of overpayment in MPT purchases of Steward real estate. Asked at that time about what appeared to be inflated hospital valuations, MPT’s then-spokesperson Drew Babin called the Globe’s findings “false and misleading” and said “MPT stands firmly behind our rigorous underwriting process.”
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.