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The wooded parcel is part of the Park Central office park and across Scott Road from the Saint Gertrude High School Outdoor Athletic Center, which the EDA bought last year for $4.5 million.
“The big question is why the financing was $100 million higher than the projected cost, and where did that money go,” asked one of several observers who have scrutinized the ill-fated deal.
Emails show that the exit payment offer was at one point as high as $142 million, before the health system and its landlord settled on $73.1 million.
“The developer exploited our desire to partner with the city...to push a grossly one-sided project that offers limited value to VCU Health but saddles us with all of the project’s costs and risks,” then-VCU Health CEO Art Kellermann said days before signing off on the deal.
A risk analysis of the deal, which last week drew added scrutiny from Gov. Glenn Youngkin, said the lease “was horribly one-sided, and certainly not what any of us would have recommended as a starting point for a complex transaction such as this.”