Health department signed $4,650 monthly lease at mall
Photo by The Roanoke Times
The Virginia Department of Health has leased space at Valley View Mall to establish a wellness center aimed at supporting the Women, Infants and Children program.
The state signed a lease in July for $4,650 a month, according to a copy of the lease. The rent includes all utilities.
The lease runs until Jan. 31 and the center’s hours have been set from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The lease allows for the health department to extend the hours, if needed, as long as the center’s hours remain within the normal operating hours for the Roanoke mall.
In addition to supporting the health department’s nutritional program for low-income families, the area is intended to support immunization clinics and health education outreach.
Read more about the program on the Storefront blog and in Sunday’s Retail Roundup column.
September 24, 2012 - 12:00 PM
I honestly see this as a waste of tax payer money. I was by there during the “office” hours and no one was there.
Without saying how much space is being leased, the monthly rent is a completely meaningless number. How can a reader of this blog make any judgement about the content you have written?
@Thomas The space is “approximately 1,121 square feet,” according to the lease.
WIC is a federally funded program
@Meg Correct. States administer it. So, in this case, the state still is the one to sign the lease and run the program using federal money.
Would you please tell us who the Commonwealth of Virginia official is that had the leasing authority and the authority to accept this federal money?
@John Those are two different questions. The same person is not responsible for both the lease and WIC funding. State leases are approved through the Department of General Services and are signed on behalf of the Governor.
WIC is a federal subsidy from USDA that is provided to states through grants. For 2012, Virginia received $102.4 million in total WIC grants. In Virginia the program is run through the Virginia Department of Health.
Thanks for the quick respones.
What a huge waste of money!
I do want to say that while the WIC program is a very beneficial program, this outreach center is NOT needed. If you want to reach the general population that receives WIC, put the center somewhere out in the community where people can walk to it. Leasing a “store front” in the mall will not provide access to the people who most need it.
There is NO reason to use these funds to pay nearly $51 per square foot.
The program is worthy (preventative health issues and a bridge to self sufficiency). There are certainly other accessible locations just as or more accessible. This could have provided more funding to direct benefits rather than increasing administrative program costs.
Certainly hope this isn’t some insiders knowing each other and padding their own bottom line.
I spoke earlier this summer with Veronica Breck of CBL Properties, about renting a kiosk in Valley View Mall. Ms. Breck informed me that rental was $4000 a month. When I polled the other kiosk merchants, I found the highest rent to be $1300. I was dismayed at the discrepancy between reality and what I was quoted. I decided at that point to look elsewhere.
How much do other occupants pay for a similar size space? $4.22 per sq. ft. seems reasonable… I think typical mall rents are usually around $6 sq. ft…
@sarah jones — you really need context to make this a fair article!
@Mike Lawson Since the mall is private, they are under no obligation to disclose typical rates. I’m sorry I don’t have that context for you.
What other context are you looking for? Can you elaborate on how this is unfair? This entry was an update to a story that we already reported in the Retail Roundup column that ran Sunday, which I linked to above. I had more information on the subject that I thought was important to report.
ALL businesses – Private OR Public pay rent for the space in which they operate unless they are fortunate
to OWN a building. The headline and focus of the story seems misleading and angled to provoke controversy.
Their six month lease amounts to roughly $27,400 for the space. If they were to pay to buy or build a facility you’d be talking half a million or more. And the woman who said she visited during “office hours” and no one
was there…you were there. Staff were there. Who wasn’t there? What time of day did you go? I’ve been to the emergency room at certain hours and “no one was there”. I’m not sure what the point of the story, the blog
posts or the responses are? One imagines renting a filthy toilet at a local gas station would be cheaper…but…
I think a more responsible approach to this story might have been:
HEALTH CENTER OPENS AT VALLEY VIEW MALL TO PROVIDE SERVICES FOR ROANOKE RESIDENTS.
(Insert details here).
This story is outrageous, and is not getting sufficient media coverage by the Roanoke Times. I assume this story is not being released to other media outlets.
@Concerned Citizen The story wasn’t released by anyone. My colleague first discovered the new storefront in the mall and wrote something short about the programming at the center. As a follow-up to the original coverage, I filed a Freedom of Information Request with the Virginia Department of Health for a copy of the lease. Anyone else, including other media and the general public, could also file a request for a copy of the lease. By law the state has 5 working days to respond to the request and in this case release a copy of the lease.