GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Kent County can offer its large-scale vaccination clinic at DeVos Place ‘rent-free’ now that it has renegotiated its conference center lease after a public inquiry into the original lease’s daily rent of $ 12,000.
The province, which operates the clinic in partnership with Spectrum Health and Mercy Health Saint Mary’s, announced the revised contract Friday afternoon.
Negotiations were held with the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention / Arena Authority (CAA), the public authority that owns DeVos Place, as well as SMG / ASM Global, the company hired by the CAA to manage the venue.
“We are very pleased with the outcome of our recent discussions with the CAA and SMG regarding the vaccination clinic at DeVos Place,” Kent County Administrator Wayman Britt said in a statement.
“All parties involved share the goal of operating the most efficient, safest and most effective large-scale vaccination clinic in our region. We also share our commitment to being responsible managers of public dollars and strengthening community confidence. ”
Under the revised agreement, the CAA and ASM Global will make DeVos Place available to the province ‘rent-free’, while the province will only be ‘charged’ for actual costs of operating the facility, “according to a Kent County news release.
The costs include utilities, household and maintenance services, security and EMS services. Charges for costs “will only be incurred to the extent that services are requested or used in the clinic,” according to the province.
The initial contract’s daily rent fee of $ 12,000 pushed back members of the Kent County Board of Commissioners and DeltaPlex owner Joel Langlois. Langlois said on social media that he would have offered the vaccine clinic for $ 1,000 a day at his Walker premises.
A provincial news release said it was “impossible to predict the exact cost of the new operation” when the first lease for the space was signed last month before the clinic was launched in late January.
“Our goal at the time was to get a temporary deal in place so we could open the clinic and get shots in the arms,” Britt said. “After our first 15 days of operation, we are better able to assess the actual space and operational needs, as well as the hard costs associated with using the conference center for this unprecedented purpose.”
Read more:
The video shows the victim chasing the victim before he was fatally shot in Heritage Hill
Officials say off-campus has seen an increase in COVID-19 cases at the University of Michigan
Criminal hearings over the fire crisis in the flint were delayed until June when the grand jury records were reviewed