The Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center on Mission Hill, shown March 6. A new motion filed in court, Oct. 1, is seeking to restart the bid and sale process of the Mission Hill nursing home.

A Suffolk County Superior Court judge rejected a motion that would have taken the sale process of the Edgar Benjamin Healthcare Center back to square one.

The decision, released Oct. 14 by Judge Anthony Campo, found that the motion to intervene was not filed in a timely manner, given the Mission Hill nursing home’s precarious financial situation. Delaying the process, he said, could have negative impacts on the center and its residents.

“The purpose of the underlying receivership is due to the Benjamin’s incredibly vulnerable financial situation,” Campo wrote in his ruling. “Time is of the essence to improve this situation.”

The motion to intervene was filed in Suffolk County Superior Court on Oct. 1 by Dr. Kenya Hanspard and the Mattapan Community Development Corporation.

Both Hanspard, the center’s medical director, and the Mattapan CDC submitted bids to purchase the Edgar Benjamin when its receiver, Joseph Feaster, announced his intention to sell the facility and its operations earlier this year The receivership, as well as attorneys representing the commonwealth and guardians of residents at the facility, said the in-progress sale to Allaire Health Services, a for-profit, New Jersey-based, long-term care operator, must happen quickly to keep the facility afloat. Allaire was selected as Feaster’s recommendation for the buyer at the end of July.

The would-be intervenors argued that the process should be revisited for the long-term good of the Mission Hill nursing home. The center has been in something of a state of limbo since spring 2024, when the court appointed a receiver to take away control of operations from former administrator Tony Francis amid allegations of financial mismanagement, a proposed closure and multiple instances where staff went unpaid.

The motion from Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC requested that the court reconsider its decision to support Feaster’s recommendation of Allaire to purchase the facility and its operations. Instead, the motion proposed that the court appoint a separate receiver to initiate a new bidding process.

Failing that, the motion requested that the court require Feaster to provide a “thorough and comprehensive report” regarding why he recommended Allaire to the court.

The motion was heard by the court on Oct. 9.

In their motion to intervene, Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC alleged that the bid process was mishandled.

According to their filing, the bids from the Mattapan CDC; Hanspard, who initially submitted a proposal alongside Yveda Brutus, a local nurse and mental health professional; and TotalCare, a home-health company, were identified as finalists in the process as local prospective operators.

The three were asked to come together and make one joint proposal — Feaster said in an interview that the three proposals weren’t strong enough individually, but that he wanted to make “every effort to try to get a local team from the community” to take over.

Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC had said they were able to put together a proposal and submit it by July 28, days before Feaster announced Allaire as his recommendation to the court in July. Feaster said they “weren’t able to accomplish” pulling together a joint proposal.

Representatives for Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC couldn’t be reached for further comment.

The filing takes issue with the announcement of Allaire as the recommendation after Feaster told Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC that their proposals were finalists. And it raises concerns about violations against staffing ratios that Allaire has faced in New Jersey.

Feaster, in an interview following an Oct. 6 status conference regarding the sale process, said that he didn’t tell any of the bidders they were out of the process until he made his recommendation.

In their filing, Hanspard and Mattapan CDC also took issue with the way Feaster identified his selection, saying that he “did not disclose to this Court any criteria used in making this recommendation.”

Throughout the receivership process, Feaster has faced concerns — largely from the state’s Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Public Health — about whether he had been providing enough detail about the operations of the facility.

Feaster said that he believes the bidding process was conducted appropriately.

“We stand by the process and stand by the outcome,” he said.

In the courtroom during the Oct. 9 hearing for the motion, Adam Gutbezahl, an attorney representing Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC, said he did not believe the bidding process was as clear and robust as it should have been.

Campo, however, was skeptical, pointing to the receivership’s long trajectory in court. Feaster was first appointed to take control of the center 18 months ago, in April 2024; the sale of the facility was first proposed in April 2025.

“To the extent that [you’re suggesting] there’s any shortcomings in the court’s analysis, you should check yourself,” Campo said.

In the hearing, attorneys for the receivership, Oren Sellstrom, who represents the guardians of residents who first sued for the receivership and the commonwealth, were unified — a not altogether common occurrence in a courtroom that has seen bickering and mistrust — in speaking against the motion to intervene.

The motion raised concerns, for many, of further delays in an already lengthy process.

Sellstrom said due to a still precarious financial situation, he worries that the further delays that would come from restarting the bidding process could risk harm to the patients if the facility struggled to make payroll or vendors went unpaid.

“That will set the process back months and months, and we simply don’t have that time,” Sellstrom said.

Allaire’s bid — which he called a “light at the end of the tunnel” — comes with $6.5 million that the receivership expects will cover some of the facility’s outstanding debts, as well as a post-acquisition investment of between $2 million and $4 million for general renovations and improvements at the Edgar Benjamin. Plus, the receivership hopes the for-profit company’s deeper pockets will help stabilize the facility.

In an interview, Feaster described a facility that is functioning, but on the edge.

He said that the facility in recent weeks has had to do repairs around the Edgar Benjamin, which has left them in a place where they need to request MassHealth payments from the state a few days early to make payroll.

Timothy Fraser, an attorney representing the receivership, also said the receivership believes delays could be at the detriment of the residents.

“We have a health care center that is in great financial turmoil, and we have something of a savior in Allaire,” he said.

But Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC, in their filing, said that who takes over operation of the facility is an important enough decision that it shouldn’t be made hastily.

“The eventual sale of the Benjamin is a significant decision that will affect not just its current residents, but future residents and the surrounding community for decades to come,” they wrote in their motion. “As this court knows, this is a decision of significant import.”

The motion to intervene was filed days before Allaire Health Services submitted its official notice of intent to acquire with the state Department of Public Health. That document, submitted Oct. 3, starts the official process for the DPH to review Allaire’s suitability to take over.

In the meantime, Feaster said he has been working with Allaire to get a new administrator installed at the facility.

During the Oct. 6 status conference, the court confirmed that all parties were aiming to wrap up the process by the end of November.

That timeline, however, is likely to prove unwieldy. In his decision on the motion to intervene, Campo wrote that Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC filed a notice with the Department of Public Health to request a public hearing in the transfer process. That hearing must occur 45 days before the sale can be completed.

Feaster expressed a lack of concern about the shifting timeline, saying he believes the date was more a bookmark to keep the process moving than a hard deadline.

“We’re trying to move as efficiently and expeditiously as possible,” he said. “No one can want this to be transferred as much as I do.”

The purchase also must be reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office’s Public Charities Division, which oversees, among other things, the sale of assets from a nonprofit organization to a for-profit company.

Across the board, parties in the courtroom — aside from Hanspard and the Mattapan CDC — seemed ready to see the sale move forward.

Campo, too, suggested the court would like to see the process reach a conclusion sooner rather than later.

For months, the court — first under Justice Christopher Belezos, who presided over the proceedings for the first six months of the year, and now under Campo — has pressured all the parties to work together to bring a final outcome.

“It is of paramount concern to this court that this happens in a precise and timely manner,” Campo said.