Port St. Lucie votes to lease former VGTI building to Cleveland Clinic Florida

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Port St. Lucie Commissioners voted unanimously Monday night to lease the former VGTI building in Port St. Lucie to Cleveland Clinic, putting the city back on track to use the building as it was originally intended to be used.
 
The lease would call for Cleveland Clinic to pay $1 per year for 15 years with the option to buy the building for $14.5 million. The lease would begin Oct. 1.
 
Cleveland Clinic would also have to create at least 100 jobs above the average salary for the city over the next five years.
 
City leaders said this was a big step forward in helping the city achieve a long term goal of becoming a bio-science hub and home to some of the best medical research in the world.
 
It is also a step forward for the city to start eliminating some financial strain caused by the VGTI building. 
 
The city has been trying to sell the facility for nearly four years without success, due in part to the size of the building and the design of the building geared toward research, making for a limited market of potential buyers. VGTI moved out of the building in 2015, leaving the city on the hook for $57 million as of August 2019.
 
With Cleveland Clinic taking over operational and maintenance costs, the savings to the city each year could amount to around $1.5 million.
 
Cleveland Clinic Martin Health President Rob Lord said the research facility would be the first Cleveland Clinic research facility outside of Ohio.
 
 “I would envision this research facility working very closely with our local hospitals to bring this research from the bench to the bedside,” Lord said.
 
 “I would hope as we move into the future, the City of Port St. Lucie will be able to realize, as well as the State of Florida, what was intended when we started on this journey many years ago. That’s for Florida to become a hub for clinical research for the United States and the world.”
 
Additionally, Vaxine, a vaccine development company based out of Australia, is working with Cleveland Clinic to move into part of the building, making Port St. Lucie its North American headquarters.