Memorial Hospital

A campus of eight builidngs constructed over the course of 80 years and encompassing styles from Romanesque to Spanish Colonial to Brutalism

About this Property

Last Tenant

The hospital closed in late 2017 after struggling financially for more than a decade. A purchase by Care New England in 2013 did nothing to address the financial burdens. In the summer of 2016, the maternity ward was closed. The hospital’s intensive care unit was closed in December 2017 and its emergency room was closed on January 1, 2018.1

Architecture

The campus has constantly grown since the first domed building, the Sayles Building, in 1918. The building formed the nexus of the campus for the next 80 years, with 23 patient beds constructed for just $50,975.2

In 1931, in the midst of the Great Depression, Memorial opened a pediatrics/maternity unit using a $200,000 donation from Mr. and Mrs. James R. MacColl in memory of their daughter, Margaret. The unit, named after the family, added 44 beds for children and 25 for maternity. Two decades later, in 1951, workers completed a two-story wing named the Richardson Building after an original trustee, E. Russel Richardson, who left a fund of $285,000 when he died in 1931. The building added 56 beds, bringing the hospital’s total bed count to 214.

A critical year in Memorial’s history was 1965, which saw the opening of the Harold W. Wood Building and a launch of an ambitious modernization and expansion program that continued for more than 20 years and enlarged the physical appearance and size of the main campus to its current size. The seven-story Wood Building provided Memorial with 150 new medical, surgical and maternity beds. The building also featured a new emergency department, x-ray facility and cafeteria. Named for the long-time treasurer and president of the hospital, the Wood project cost $3.8 million. Of that, $1.3 million, $300,000 more than expected, was donated by the community.

Phase two of the modernization program, the Dr. Percy Hodgson Building, was dedicated next to the Wood Building in 1976. The building, named after the president of the Board of Trustees, cost $8 million, of which $4 million was pledged by members of the community and hospital staff. Inside was a new operating theatre with eight operating rooms, a pharmacy, and space for transportation and central processing. In addition, there were 80 modern patient rooms, including those in the new intensive care and coronary care units.

In 1985, phase three of modernization was the $1.7-million Ambulatory Care Center. The 16,000-square foot center serves as the central facility for outpatient services and was the first part in a $14.3-million construction and renovation program. Housed there [were] such services as mammography, x-ray, blood screening and other laboratory testing. The remainder of the money, $12.6 million, was used for the new Sayles Building, completed in September 1987.

Redevelopment

Entrepreneur Michael Mota and an investment group want to continue to line of thinking that Lockwood Development was proposing before their financing fell through. Their plan would include housing for senior veterans.

History

The Pawtucket General Hospital

Memorial Hospital was chartered more than a century ago by the Pawtucket Business Men’s Association as “The Pawtucket General Hospital” to provide quality health care to the people of the Blackstone Valley region regardless of their ability to pay. The hospital was funded by a $200,000 gift from William F. Sayles, a founder of the Saylesville Finishing Plant in Lincoln, after his death in 1894. Memorial [grew] from a 30-bed institution that admitted two patients its first day, to a sprawling 13-acre teaching institution affiliated with The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University with 294 beds and three satellite primary care center facilities in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts. It is the site of the Alpert Medical School’s teaching programs in internal and family medicine, and operated a school of nursing for 70 years.

In the News

Grebien disheartened but still hopeful on Memorial Hospital redevelopment

by Ethan Shorey
Valley Breeze | January 4, 2023 (abridged)

Mayor Donald Grebien says he’s disheartened that the vision for re-imagining the former Memorial Hospital property as housing for veterans has fallen through, but hopeful that a new developer will take the project to completion.

Grebien said he hopes the new developer’s plan is in line with what Pawtucket residents want and need, and he will continue to do everything he can to protect residents in the surrounding neighborhood and their interests.

The administration has not reached any agreements with the prospective new developer, and has also not yet had any discussions on such an agreement, according to the mayor.

As reported by The Providence Journal last week, entrepreneur Michael Mota and an investment group want to get the project back on track, including housing for more than 350 veterans and restoring the homeless shelter run by Amos House that was shut down on Nov. 18 due to broken sprinklers and residents relocated. […]

Mota, who incorporated the Memorial Real Estate Group LLC in November, told The Providence Journal that their investment group is working with the existing owners in a voluntary foreclosure proceeding, and their immediate goal is to get the homeless shelter back up and running within the next month or so. Fixing the sprinklers and other steps to restore the space are happening now.

Lockwood has a number of unpaid debts related to work at the property, and Amos House has not paid its $60,000 in monthly rent for operation of the shelter since the sprinkler burst. […]

Captured March 19, 2023 from https://www.valleybreeze.com/news/grebien-disheartened-but-still-hopeful-on-memorial-hospital-redevelopment/article_1daa17f2-8861-11ed-8658-27b087c8f4ab.html

Previous News

Developer buys former Memorial Hospital property in Pawtucket, plans housing for R.I. veterans

by Alexa Gagosz
Boston Globe | January 26, 2021 (abridged)

Almost two years after a purchase-and-sale agreement was signed for the former Memorial Hospital property, Lockwood Development Partners announced Tuesday that it has closed a deal with Care New England Health System.

Lockwood, a New York City developer, confirmed it’s collaborating with Veteran Services USA to transform the vacant site into a housing complex for the state’s aging veterans.

The plan for the Brewster Street site includes a 390,000-square-foot campus with more than 200 apartments prioritized for senior veterans, an adult day health care facility for therapy and other social services, a career training and education program for new veterans reskilling or upskilling for the civilian workforce, as well as medical and lab space to address the veterans’ and surrounding community’s health needs. […]

The project is expected to cost $70 million and create up to 500 jobs during construction and 60 permanent jobs, according to Mayor Donald R. Grebien’s office. […]

[…] Lockwood, which also has offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami, has done similar projects in other parts of the country, creating spaces for housing and services specific to veterans.

“For our senior veterans, our goal is to create affordable housing with therapeutic amenities. Our staff will strive to instill a positive spirit while aiming to enhance a better quality of life for every resident,” said Lockwood’s president, Charles Everhardt, in a statement. “For our younger veterans, our goal is to provide training and education to carefully position them into the health care workforce, enabling each veteran to excel and shine with their passion to serve others.”

Grebien’s office said all buildings on the site will be retained and enhanced as part of a historic preservation project, while the zoning and permitting process is set to begin by mid-2021, with interior demolition anticipated in late 2021. The project is expected to be completed in 2023.

Captured February 6, 2021 from https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/26/metro/former-memorial-hospital-property-pawtucket-sold-ny-based-developer/


Pawtucket’s Memorial Hospital sold for just $250,000

by Paul Edward Parker
Providence Journal | January 27, 2021 (abridged)

How much would you guess was the price of the former Memorial Hospital, whose sale to a veterans housing developer was announced this week?

First, a few hints:

  • The building has about 390,000 square feet of floor space.
  • It comes with 7.68 acres of land.

Have a ballpark guess?

If you guessed “about as much as a single-family house,” you’re right.

A spokesman for mayor Donald R. Grebien, who helped facilitate the deal between the hospital’s owner and the developer, confirmed Wednesday that the price was $250,000.

That’s much less than the $319,900 statewide median price of a single-family house last year, according to the Rhode Island Association of Realtors. But, when you consider only sales in Pawtucket, it’s almost an exact match: the median sale price of a single-family house in the city last year was $248,000. […]

In other details of the transaction, Grebien spokesman Wilder Arboleda said that Lockwood did not buy the entire property, which has an address of 111 Brewster St. He said that Care New England retained 5.72 acres on which it operates its Family Care Center, a primary-care provider.

Captured February 6, 2021 from https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2021/01/27/pawtuckets-memorial-hospital-sold-much-house/4278219001/

  1. Dates of closure from the Wikipedia article, captured February 6, 2021 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Hospital_of_Rhode_Island 

  2. Architecture and building sequence captured February 6, 2021 from http://www.mhri.org/about/history.cfm