Mayor Dickens plans to extend redevelopment moratorium at former Atlanta Medical Center
Atlanta mayor extends block to redevelop former AMC site
Where Mayor Andre Dickens wants to block a health care giant from repurposing what used to be Atlanta Medical Center. FOX 5 confirms the mayor wants to extend a moratorium on redeveloping the site. AMC’S closure created a massive healthcare vacuum for thousands of low income residents. It also left Grady Memorial Hospital as the only level one trauma center in the metro area.
ATLANTA - Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants to continue a temporary block a health care giant from repurposing what used to be Atlanta Medical Center. FOX 5 confirms the mayor plans to extend a moratorium on redeveloping the site. Wellstar shut down the hospital nearly a year ago citing huge financial losses. City leaders say the closure created a health care vacuum for working-class and poor communities that relied on it.
The city enacted the moratorium soon after Wellstar announced the closure. The temporary ban means the company cannot do anything new with the property.
"I think it’s a great idea," said Richard Rose, who heads the civil-rights group Communities United for Justice. "To change it to anything else would be putting our citizens at risk."
Wellstar, last November, shut Atlanta Medical Center in the Old Fourth Ward. The company said the hospital lost $107-million in a little more than a year. Wellstar closed its emergency room and regular hospital beds at its medical center in East Point earlier in 2022. Rose says the two closures wiped out health care for thousands of patients, many without insurance, in largely low-income African-American neighborhoods south of Interstate 20.
"It’s a big loss for the city and for the state to lose the Atlanta Medical Center," Rose said. "You may need healthcare and if the facilities are not there, lives are in danger."
Extending the temporary ban would prevent Wellstar from repurposing the site until next April. Council member Keisha Waites proposes putting a diversion and crisis center where AMC used to stand.
"I would love to see this property be repurposed into the John Lewis Health and Equity Wellness Center," Waites said. "It would provide a number of services, a mini-courtroom, drug and alcohol recovery for people with special needs, mental health services."
City leader have said the moratorium gives them more time to come up with a solution. The Atlanta City Council could vote on the plan at the next meeting on October 16.