VCU disputes findings of poll on failed Clay Street project conducted by … VCU

VCU officials are throwing shade at a poll commissioned by the VCU Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs showing rather significant public dissatisfaction with the school’s lack of transparency on the failed Clay Street development.

The Commonwealth Poll data released on Monday revealed that 92 percent of those polled who said they are familiar with the Clay Street deal feel that the VCU Health Systems Board should be responsible for explaining more details about the deal to Virginia taxpayers, and that 65 percent agreed that information about the deal has been concealed and kept from the public.

VCU Health, last year, pulled out of the $325 million project, which included plans for a medical office tower and multiuse project in Downtown Richmond at the site of the former former Richmond Public Safety Building at 10th Street and Clay Street, citing construction challenges and others that arose in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.

The decision to back out of the deal cost VCU Health an initial exit fee of $72.9 million, with the total expected to reach the $100 million mark when all is said and done.

The fallout from the failed deal brought criticism from far and wide, including from Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who called the circumstances around the deal and the exit fees a “wakeup call,” and from Doug Wilder, the former governor and Richmond mayor who heads up VCU’s Wilder School.

In the release on The Commonwealth Poll on Monday, Wilder said the poll numbers “indicate the need for an official investigation by the state to explain why VCU spent $100 million for nothing. The poll results show that the people have not had any explanation of the waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“It is inconceivable why there has been no investigation by the state at this point when the facts speak for themselves,” Wilder said.

VCU responded to the release of the poll and Wilder’s comments in a statement later in the day on Monday, dismissing the poll numbers because of “a questionable sample size” and claiming that the questions asked of respondents “for some reason, lack full context about the issue, unfortunately preventing respondents from making informed choices.”

“In reality, VCU Health has broadly shared the circumstances, facts and outcomes about the Clay Street project, including the two independent, external reviews it commissioned. One was a forensic study of the project’s beginnings and ending. The second was a review and recommendations for best practices for governance. Both reviews were made public. Further, VCU Health is fully cooperating with the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission’s (JLARC) review of VCU Health. We look forward to its report,” the statement said.

As should have been expected, the Wilder School responded to the official VCU response – the lesson here being, don’t pick a fight with Doug Wilder.

The statement from the Wilder School tells us that VCU delayed the release of the poll so that it could craft a formal response, and that officials, during the delay, “did not indicate to the Commonwealth Poll authors that there were challenges to the methodology.”

“The language used in the VCU response to the Commonwealth Poll is destructive and damaging not just to the Wilder School’s recognized credibility but also a disservice to the entire VCU community, media outlets, and the VCU brand at large,” the Wilder School statement said. “This attack directly implies a conflict of interest. At no point has VCU President Michael Rao personally addressed the failed real estate deal nor explained how a third-party law firm reported a lack of due diligence on the tanked deal.

“We all deserve the right to know the perceptions of Virginians, even if these opinions disagree with the official VCU narrative of the failed project,” the Wilder School statement went on. “We should not be stifled or discredited to divert attention from the compounding mistakes of the VCU administration, led by Michael Rao and carried out by Michael Porter, VCU associate vice president for public relations.”