Mayor Andre Dickens has confirmed plans to extend a moratorium for six months on any new development on the site of the former Atlanta Medical Center in Old Fourth Ward, according to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Atlanta City Council is expected to vote on the mayor’s request for a moratorium at its next meeting on Oct. 16, according to the AJC.
Dickens and the council first approved a temporary ban on redeveloping the hospital’s 25-acre site when Wellstar Health System announced it was closing AMC one year ago. The moratorium has been extended numerous times. The latest extension was approved in April and expires this month.
“As we’re coming up on a year moratorium, we will be extending that once again to make sure that we try to get the best deal, the best option, for our community,” Dickens told the AJC. “We’d love another hospital or another medical care facility right here.”
The non-profit Wellstar, one of the state’s largest health systems, said it was forced to close AMC in November 2022 due to heavy revenue losses. The announcement shocked city and county leaders. They said the 120-year-old hospital played a key role in Atlanta’s healthcare ecosystem because it served some of Atlanta’s most vulnerable people, including low-income and Black residents.
Last month, as the deadline for the current moratorium approached, city council members Keisha Sean Waites and Amir Farokhi told Rough Draft what they would like to see happen on the site of the former hospital.
Waites’ wants the city to acquire the shuttered hospital site for an equity center. The center, to be named for U.S. Rep. John Lewis, would provide resources such as mental health services, job training, and transitional housing for homeless people.
Farokhi, however, believes it’s time to let developers buy the “high demand” property to build housing, retail or office that could include health care facilities.
He said it was time to recognize the entire site would not be developed for healthcare and that he would vote against another moratorium.
Wellstar officials were recently blasted by members of the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee for its decision to close Atlanta Medical Center and a smaller hospital in East Point late last year before announcing its plans to invest $800 million to take over Augusta University’s hospitals. The takeover gained legal approval Aug. 30.
A Wellstar spokesperson said last month the health care system was “committed to a thoughtful process to determine the best use for the future of these sites.”