Vaccine sites on tap for lots at Bush, Hobby

Parking lots at Bush and Hobby airports soon will be home to mass vaccination clinics for the Houston Health Department, as the supply of shots continues to ramp up.

City Council unanimously approved lease arrangements at the airports Wednesday.

The site at Bush’s The Parking Spot opened Tuesday under a short-term lease agreement, with some 6,665 people scheduled to get shots there this week. It is not clear yet when the Hobby location of The Parking Spot will open for vaccinations, although the request for council action said it is necessary “for this operation to begin immediately.”

The news comes as the state announced Tuesday that all Texas adults will be eligible for the vaccine beginning Monday. The state Department of State Health Services said it expects supply to increase considerably next week, though it is not clear by how much.

District I Councilmember Robert Gallegos said he worried the move to open up the pool of eligible adults would exacerbate wait times for those trying to get appointments.

“I know that when it was at (people) 50 and above, I heard people letting me know that they were having issues in regards to the wait time to get registered,” Gallegos said. “So, now that it’s open to everyone 18 and over, I can only imagine the wait time to register.”

Mayor Sylvester Turner said he hopes the number of doses coming to the city will “exponentially increase” since the state has

opened the eligibility requirements. If that happens, he said the city can open “many more locations” for people to get a vaccine, along with mobile sites that move around the city to reach people who have trouble leaving their homes.

“Please go and get the vaccination where you can, or sign up to receive it,” Turner said. “The goal is to increase the number of sites.”

The request for council action on the airport leases said the Health Department anticipates receiving a large number of vaccines on a more routine basis.

The new sites would double the number of the city’s main vaccination sites, according to the Health Department. It also operates clinics at Delmar Stadium and the Bayou City Event Center. Those four sites are designed to ramp up to 3,000 doses per day, six days per week, when the supply allows.

The clinics at Bush Airport, Delmar and Bayou City Event Center are giving out between 1,000 and 2,500 doses per day currently.

The city has also benefited from a federal vaccination site at NRG Stadium, capable of giving 6,000 shots per day. The Health Department said it will consider continuing that site when the Federal Emergency Management Agency demobilizes it, likely sometime in April.

The city also uses health centers, multi-service centers and partnerships with clinics, pharmacies, churches and other groups to distribute the vaccine.

The city will pay $2,000 per day to use each airport parking lot through June, at a total cost of $392,000. The requests said the parking lot lease arrangements at the airports, which the city owns, are needed because they are “large enough to allow HHD to fluidly operate” vaccination sites. The city is using federal grants to cover the costs.

The Parking Spot lots were closed to cars due to a drop in demand amid the pandemic, making them a viable option, spokesman Porfirio Villarreal said. The cityowned lots at the airports are still open to parking.

Appointments are needed for both sites, and they are not currently available.

To sign up for text and email alerts about new appointments, register for the HoustonRecovers option at AlertHouston.org.