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Brecksville close to acquiring former hospital campus from Veterans Affairs

Sun Star Courier - 6/21/2017

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio - After six years of negotiating, the city is close to gaining control of the former veterans' hospital property at the northwest corner of Brecksville and Miller roads.

On Tuesday night, City Council approved a lease agreement that will transfer the rights, duties and obligations of the property to Brecksville. It means the city - once it obtains the title of the land from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs - can redevelop the site.

"We're finally at the end of the road to make this a property of the city," Mayor Jerry Hruby told council. "This is the first step."

The city wants to transform the 102-acre site into a multiple-use district that might include stores, restaurants, apartments, hotels, hospitals, manufacturing plants, warehouses, offices and laboratories.

In November, Brecksville residents, at City Hall's request, voted overwhelmingly to rezone the hospital property into an "overlay district." The site remained an office-laboratory zone but the city can allow housing and other types of businesses on a case-by-case basis.

Brecksville voters will decide future of VA property in November

However, although voters put the overlay district in place, the city needs control of the VA hospital property to bring redevelopment.

Hruby over the years has discussed possibly turning the VA land over to a private developer. On Tuesday, he said the city is now working with a developer on the project, but he would not name the firm.

"We are finalizing negotiations, and at the appropriate time a memorandum of understanding will be authorized by city council," Hruby told cleveland.com in an email.

The agreement approved Tuesday is between the city and Veterans Development LLC, a real-estate developer that has been leasing the veterans'-hospital property from the VA since 2009.

The VA had chosen Veterans Development - headed by Michael Forlani, who in 2013 was sentenced to eight years in prison in connection to racketeering and bribery schemes that were part of the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal - to develop and manage the consolidation of the VA'sBrecksville and Wade Park hospitals.

At any rate, the new Brecksville-Veterans Development contract - known known as an "assignment and assumption agreement" - keeps the 2009 VA-Veterans Development lease intact but transfers the lease's rights, duties and obligations of the lease to the city, and at no cost to the city.

Brecksville Law Director David Matty said the city's next step is to present to the VA its plans to redevelop the hospital property. Then the VA will decide whether to transfer the title to the city.

Matty was optimistic the city would receive the title, saying the VA has been supporting toward Brecksville's goals.

"They (VA officials) do want the city of Brecksville to own the property," Matty said.

Under the assignment and assumption agreement, the city promises that Veterans Development will have no liability or expenses related to the veterans'-hospital property, and that the city will not file any legal action against Veterans Development in relation to the property.

Also, the city assumes responsibility for any environmental problems on the site.

In June 2016, the city hired McCabe Engineering & Contracting for $135,000 to determine the conditions of the hospital's 34 buildings, look for asbestos and mold and identify hazardous and medical waste. Hruby said McCabe did find environmental concerns but he had no time to go into detail late Tuesday.

"I will say the environmental testing resulted in no unexpected environmental issues, considering the era of the construction and the functions of the hospital," Hruby told cleveland.com.