A new approach to finish construction and reopen Norwood Hospital is gaining late-session momentum on Beacon Hill.
The House last week passed redrafted legislation (H 5553) authorizing the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance to take the land parcel that the under-construction hospital sits on by eminent domain “for the purpose of ensuring access to health care for the public.” The Senate gave the bill initial approval during its informal session Monday.
DCAMM would transfer the land to the Department of Public Health, which could then sell, lease or transfer the property to a “qualified nonprofit hospital operator,” according to the bill originally sponsored by Rep. John Rogers of Norwood.
Should the bill reach Gov. Maura Healey’s desk, the maneuver would resolve a remnant of the Steward Health Care bankruptcy saga that two years ago led to two hospital closures and prompted the state to seize St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton by eminent domain. Massachusetts is currently flexing its eminent domain powers to take homes as part of the Sagamore Bridge replacement project.
Convened by Healey, the Norwood Hospital Task Force in a recent report recommended passage of Rogers’ bill to restore access to acute and emergency care to a region of roughly 250,000 people. Since the hospital loss “crosses municipal boundaries and burdens hospitals well beyond Norwood, it is appropriately addressed by the Commonwealth and should not be the burden of a single town,” the report says.
Task force chair Tony Mazzucco, Norwood’s general manager, said the bill would be “lifesaving” for his town.
“Every day our ambulances are driving by that hospital building with sick and dying patients,” Mazzucco told the News Service. “If you have a heart attack in Norwood, or Westwood, or Canton, or Dedham, or Sharon, you’re 40 minutes to a facility that can treat you.”
Norwood Hospital used to be among about two dozen hospitals that could perform an artery-opening procedure to treat major heart attacks. The two hospitals that absorbed the bulk of Norwood’s patients cannot do the procedure, meaning they “must transport cardiac patients onward to Boston, adding a further delay in circumstances where minutes are decisive,” the report says.
Norwood Hospital closed in June 2020 due to catastrophic flooding. Former Gov. Charlie Baker attended a groundbreaking ceremony in November 2021 for the start of construction of a new hospital, but the project stalled in 2024 as Steward stopped paying a contractor and became bankrupt. The site is owned by Steward’s landlord, the Alabama-based real estate investment trust Medical Properties Trust.
Thousands of soccer fans have flocked to Gillette Stadium, a roughly 15-minute drive from the Norwood site, this summer for FIFA World Cup matches. Mazzucco said “nobody talked about the fact that Norwood Hospital used to be the mass casualty site” for the stadium.
Negotiations for Mass General Brigham to buy the 11-acre property “fizzled” after MPT first requested $250 million and then ratcheted up its ask to $375 million, The Boston Globe reported last month. Revelations over that unsuccessful deal and MPT’s price tag seem to have fueled the bill’s recent trajectory in the Legislature, Mazzucco said.
“You have operators who have the money and who are interested and willing to do it, but you have a property owner who thinks they’re going to get some absurd amount of money,” Mazzucco said.
MGB did not respond to a News Service question about whether the healthcare system would revisit negotiations if the property goes under state control.
Private property owners whose land is taken by the state must receive “reasonable compensation,” according to the Massachusetts Constitution.
“It’s worth, you know, maybe $75 million as a hospital,” Mazzucco said. “As just commercial land in Norwood, it’s not worth all that much.”
He predicted the land-taking could happen “sometime this fall, give or take.” Still, Mazzucco acknowledged eminent domain is a complicated legal process.
An aide to Rogers said the office is “not aware of any operator that has been selected or any immediate timeline for a taking.”
“The intent of the bill is to provide the commonwealth with a mechanism to preserve the hospital property and facilitate its return to service should a qualified operator be identified,” the aide said.
A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, asked whether the state has immediate plans to take the land, said, “The administration will review any final legislation that reaches the Governor’s desk.”
The task force report offered a contingency plan if the legislation doesn’t pan out: the town of Norwood could consider acquiring the land through its own eminent domain authority.
“One town taking a property that serves a quarter of a million people and is a statewide issue, it’s really not appropriate,” Mazzucco said. “But if we have to do it, we will.”
