What's happening with Clio health care building on former stockyards site? [Lancaster Watchdog]

A $45 million project at the former Lancaster Stockyards has been stagnant for two years, leading many to wonder if it will ever be completed.

Readers regularly ask what’s happening at the site along Marshall Avenue where the 144,000-square-foot Clio Health Lancaster building appears much as it did in 2018.

A trip to the fenced-in site on the northern edge of Lancaster city Wednesday morning revealed nothing to indicate any significant progress has been made in the last two years.

The driver of a pickup truck at the site went into the building and a dump truck arrived soon thereafter. Both were gone within the hour.

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Several boards covered windows and the graveled grounds were covered in overgrown weeds.

Responses to emails from LNP | LancasterOnline to Aspire Ventures, Clio Health’s parent company, offered no news on the status of the project.

“As before, we can’t comment on anything not in the public record. Thanks for your continued interest in Clio Health,” spokeswoman Melissa Sfida-Allen said.

Essam Abadir, founder and managing partner of Aspire Ventures and Clio Health CEO, did not respond to the emails.

LNP | LancasterOnline asked Sfida-Allen in a subsequent email if work on what was going to be the Clio building was still underway and if officials still expect to open a Clio center in the building eventually, offering some form of health care services.

“We have no comment at this time,” she said. “We appreciate your continued interest.”

Chris Delfs, Lancaster city’s director of community planning and economic development, said in an email that it does not have any updates on plans for the site.

Aspire broke ground on the project in August 2016, with leaders saying they expected the “high-touch, high-tech facility dedicated to providing personalized medicine” to be completed by late 2017.

They were also considering constructing a second building of 35,000 feet on the site, as well as a hotel to serve patients and families.

Clio building

The is the Clio building at 1250 Marshall Ave. in Lancaster city Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020.

Then, as progress appeared to slow, a lawsuit filed in March 2018 revealed that Clio Health CEO Joe Frank and Clio Health Lancaster CEO Todd Lord were terminated at the beginning of the year. Lord said in April 2018 that they were let go because their positions were eliminated.

The next month, a new Clio Health CEO, Steve Dailey, said the company had postponed the facility’s planned opening to reassess its approach due to “an acceleration of change in the local marketplace.” Dailey is now chief operating officer of Clio Health, nationally, according to Sfida-Allen.

In July 2018, Clio Health issued a vague statement saying its core mission remained the same but unspecified revisions had been made to its vision statement. The closest it got to specifics was saying that the company’s next steps “focus on securing our anchor tenants centered around” surgery, primary care, imaging labs, physical therapy, and dental and vision services.

The company has not said anything publicly about its plans since.