Not long ago, I wondered about the feasibility of rehabbing and reopening the massive Charity Hospital building in New Orleans to address the current public health emergency in that embattled city. Something similar is happening in Philadelphia, but there’s a damn investment banker in the way. From WHYY:

But at the city’s daily COVID-19 press briefing Tuesday, Managing Director Brian Abernathy said negotiations with the building’s owner, investment banker Joel Freedman, are not going well. “Mr. Freedman was difficult to work with at times when he was the owner of the hospital, and he is still difficult to work with as the owner of the shuttered hospital,” Abernathy said.

At first, Abernathy said, Freedman tried to get the city to buy the property, which it could not afford. Then the offer was scaled to a year’s lease, and finally a six-month lease. Still, Abernathy called the price point “unreasonable.”

“I think he is looking at how to turn an asset that is earning no revenue into an asset that earns some revenue, and isn’t actually particularly thinking through what the impacts are on public health,” Abernathy said of Freedman. “I think he’s looking at this as a business transaction rather than providing an imminent and important aid to the city and our residents.”



I am generally not a fan of eminent domain, but if there is a clearer case for it than this one, especially at this moment in time, I don’t know what it would be. Last Thursday, the city broke off negotiations for the use of the hospital. It contracted with Temple University to use its gym for hospital overflow. There is nothing wrong with America that could not be fixed by shutting down the nation’s graduate schools of business for a while.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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