City woos expansion-minded Tufts-NEMC

WALTHAM

Mayor Jeannette McCarthy would like Tufts-New England Medical Center to build its first major suburban campus in Waltham, but the hospital isn't making any commitments yet.

Tufts-NEMC, based in Boston, is scouting sites in Waltham and Westwood, and hopes to strike a deal by summertime.

"We want to see where there's a community need and how we can complement what our physicians are already doing," said hospital spokeswoman Brooke Tyson Hynes.

McCarthy has lobbied hard to attract an acute-care hospital to the city since Deaconess Waltham Hospital closed in 2003, shuttering the city's only emergency room. "There is a definite need here," said the mayor.

Tufts-NEMC has also expressed interest in a site in Westwood, where a 4.5-million-square-foot housing, office and commercial complex is being developed near Route 1 and Interstate 95.

A location in the south suburbs could be particularly advantageous to Tufts-NEMC, which operates New England Quality Care Alliance, a physicians network with practices in Brockton, Weymouth, and Cape Cod.

-- Erica Noonan