Lease deal to get space for medical school

Clark County leaders, perhaps encouraged by a last-minute flood of state funding for a Southern Nevada medical school campus, may soon shake the cobwebs out of University Medical Center’s abandoned Lied building.

County commissioners, sitting as UMC’s Hospital Board of Trustees, on Tuesday OK’d an intent-to-lease agreement that would allow the University of Nevada School of Medicine to move into parts of the mothballed building at 1524 Pinto Lane — just two blocks from a long-planned multimillion-dollar UNLV medical school that was fully funded by the Legislature late Monday.

The move was approved without comment as part of the county’s consent agenda.

The preliminary lease deal calls for a final agreement that would offer the medical school six months’ free rent, retroactive through Oct. 1. It would be effective through Dec. 31.

A proposed final deal would hand the medical school nearly 4,300 feet of space on the third floor of the Lied building, which was shuttered in September — some five months after the cashstrapped hospital system laid off more than 100 administrative and medical staffers. It would cost the school $7,488 per month to lease the space.

County leaders are set to consider a final lease agreement on June 16.

Medical school administrators, who had provided pediatric services at the building before it was abandoned, asked the county to continue using the proposed lease space for that purpose. A UMC spokeswoman said the building was shuttered as part of a hospital systemwide “streamlining process” brought on by the rollout of Obamacare, coupled with a decline in county subsidies.

School officials’ introductory deal with the county came only hours after state legislators approved $29 million to fully fund start-up costs associated with the development of a much-anticipated UNLV medical school campus only blocks from the Lied building. Those costs will be funded by a 3 percent excise tax on fares collected by newly legalized ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Uber.

The campus is planned on county land in the Las Vegas Medical District, immediately north of UNLV’s Shadow Lane Campus.

Nevada System of Higher Education officials expect the new 150,000-squarefoot school will run on an $80 million annual budget. They plan to fund construction of the campus through donor funding.

If approved by accreditation officials, the school could start classes by fall 2017.

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Follow him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven