For Immediate
Release
March 29, 2006
WHITMAN-WALKER CLINIC
ANNOUNCES LONG-TERM REAL ESTATE STRATEGY
Plans To Build
State-of-the-Art Facilities, Create Endowment
WASHINGTON
– Whitman-Walker Clinic announced a long-range real
estate strategy today that includes building modern new
facilities to better serve clients and creating an endowment
for the Clinic’s financial stability.
“Our goal is to develop
new, state-of-the-art facilities that will allow Whitman-Walker
Clinic to continue to provide access to quality health care
in locations that are convenient to our clients –
both current and future,” said Roberta Geidner-Antoniotti,
interim executive director and chief operating officer.
“This is the logical offshoot of our new business
model, which is based on expanding into primary care and
increasing the number of insured clients we serve.”
The strategy was developed
by the Clinic’s board of directors in consultation
with The Jair Lynch Companies. The plan entails selling
several parcels of real estate that the Clinic already owns
in order to develop new medical facilities.
“We are offering these
buildings for sale because the time is right, because we
are expanding our services into primary care and because
our community needs and deserves the best facilities possible
to ensure high-quality care,” Geidner-Antoniotti said
at a news conference. “Not only will modern, larger,
more efficient buildings improve the way we deliver services
to the community, they will continue our drive to make Whitman-Walker
Clinic financially stable for many years to come. And the
sale of some of our current real estate will enable us to
build an endowment for the future of the Clinic and our
clients.”
The Clinic plans to issue
a request for proposals from developers to acquire three
parcels of land owned by Whitman-Walker Clinic. The sale
of these properties will be timed in such a way as to allow
Whitman-Walker Clinic to continue to provide services without
interruption as new facilities are constructed.
“What we envision is
that the site containing the administrative offices would
be sold first,” Jair Lynch said. “In the interest
of maintaining ownership of its facilities, a condition
of the sale would be that Whitman-Walker Clinic would own
approximately 30,000 square feet in the new development,
which would become the new Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center.”
Lynch said the Clinic is also
looking to expand its Max Robinson Center in Southeast.
He estimated that the new clinics would be completed in
2009.
The three sites that are for
sale are:
Max Robinson Center – 2301-2303 Martin Luther King
Jr. Ave., S.E.
Administrative Offices – 1407 S St., N.W., and 1802-1816
14th St., N.W.
Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center – 1701-1711 14th St.,
N.W.
Lynch said that if the current
clinics are sold before Whitman-Walker has developed new
facilities to replace them, Whitman-Walker would lease them
back until the Clinic has developed the new facilities so
as not to disrupt client care.
Established in 1973, Whitman-Walker
Clinic is a non-profit, community-based provider of health
care and social services in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan
area. Through three sites, in the District of Columbia and
Northern Virginia, the Clinic offers primary medical and
dental care; mental health and addictions counseling and
treatment; HIV education, prevention, and testing; legal
services; case management; and a food bank. Whitman-Walker
Clinic is committed to meeting the life needs of the gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community and people
living with HIV/AIDS.
