Need a good strategy to get hospital to sell me a vacant house they own in my neighborhood

[Cori Leste]

Hi! I've been a lurker here for some time now. Here's my first question: there are 3 homes on my street that have been owned by a hospital since their failed attempt to raise them to expand the hospital onto that land (the community convinced them to install a park and leave the homes intact 3 years ago). Now they're just sitting vacant and are being minimally maintained by their grounds crew. We'd love to buy at least one of the homes and begin restoring the block to its former fully-occupied glory days. We have a PR contact at the hospital who deals with our community and I'm wondering what the best strategy is for getting them to sell the homes. Any ideas? And are hospitals usually in the business of holding residential real estate?