The Virginia-based medical school hoping to train physicians in Vero Beach now has until early January to renegotiate terms of its lease on a three-story building on the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital campus owned by county taxpayers.

Hospital District trustees last week voted unanimously to grant the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, referred to as VCOM, a 60-day extension to cure its default on terms of its lease, one year into the agreement, due to delays caused by state regulatory snags.

As of the Oct. 8 deadline, VCOM had failed to invest the first $1 million of the required $5 million in capital improvements to the building, as required in the lease, so in September the Hospital District granted VCOM 30 days to correct the situation by Nov. 7.

Frank Isele, the hospital district’s executive director, said he and legal counsel Jennifer Peshke had a Zoom call with two VCOM executives plus two Cleveland Clinic doctors in charge of training the VCOM students. Isele said Cleveland Clinic is committed to driving the development of the local training program with VCOM.

“They want to move forward. And they gave us a basic timeline for moving forward with constructing the classroom Simulation Center for the third- and fourth-year students, also to be used for other health-care provider training in our community,” Isele said.

Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital and Treasure Coast Community Health clinics already train dozens of VCOM third- and fourth-year students in Vero Beach – with 40 of those training at the hospital – but changes in state law favoring in-state medical schools for residency slots and physician-in-training licensure has forced VCOM to take another look at its plans for the Treasure Coast.

Initially, VCOM had planned to make Vero its fifth campus.  In addition to its Blacksburg, Va., headquarters, it has satellite campuses in Louisiana, South Carolina and Alabama. But last month, VCOM officials said they’ll need to establish a new Florida-based medical school and that will take more time than a satellite campus.

An Oct. 21 letter from VCOM to the Hospital District said that “presently, VCOM has 417 alumni physicians practicing in the state of Florida.

“It is important to note that VCOM currently enrolls 248 students from Florida in their medical school classes that will graduate in 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029. It is crucial to return these students to Florida for clinical training and residency to begin to address the primary healthcare shortages in Florida.

“In 2022, VCOM and Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital formalized an ongoing agreement for the hospital to become a Core Clinical Training site for VCOM students,” the letter said. “Both VCOM and Cleveland Clinic will seek to increase the number of students to be educated in the next few years and both institutions agree that this controlled growth is required to ensure the quality of this education, as well as the quantity of future primary care physicians.”

In December, the Hospital District is expected to entertain proposed changes to the VCOM lease, giving the medical school more time to achieve benchmark accomplishments and to make the costly capital improvements.

The leased building is ideal for training students, as it’s about a three-minute walk from the Cleveland Clinic Emergency Department entrance. But it is a 1980s-era building and needs substantial maintenance and renovations. VCOM currently reimburses the Hospital District for $3,000 to $5,000 hours of monthly maintenance costs as the facility sits vacant.