Planned Parenthood clinic not moving forward in Northside after city’s $10 property deal

In 2024, the city of Richmond agreed to sell a nearly $1.3 million property for $10.

The prospective buyer was the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, which wanted to turn an old school building in Richmond’s Northside into a health clinic that would expand access to abortion and other services. 

The essentially free building wasn’t enough to make the project work.

Last week, Planned Parenthood confirmed its plan for the Northside facility has been shelved, largely for financial reasons. Property records show the city never transferred the parcel at 4929 Chamberlayne Ave. after the City Council voted to approve the deal in July of 2024. 

Because the Planned Parenthood deal didn’t go through, the property is now available to other interested buyers, according to officials.

“The city has no immediate plans for the property, and it remains available for disposition,” said city spokesperson Michael Hinkle.

The minimal price in the 2024 agreement was a reflection of Richmond officials’ stated commitment to protect and promote abortion rights locally after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. However, the transaction drew criticism and a failed legal challenge from anti-abortion activists who felt the city was essentially giving away public property to a politically favored group.

Virginia Planned Parenthood leader Paulette McElwain said the decision not to move forward with the clinic was mainly a result of federal efforts to defund the organization and high construction costs.

“It’s important to note, however, that this does not reflect a lack of need in the community for quality and comprehensive health care, but the growing funding gap created by federal attacks on reproductive health care—one that now requires a strong commitment from the Commonwealth to ensure patients do not lose access to care,” McElwain said in an email. “The Virginia League for Planned Parenthood remains committed to providing reproductive health care, abortion care, and gender-affirming health care to communities throughout Virginia through our five health centers and virtually.”

The abandoned Planned Parenthood transaction adds to questions about the city’s process for selling unused public property. City officials have been reviewing that process after state Del. Delores McQuinn, a former City Council member, put in an unsolicited offer to buy a vacant plot of city-owned land next to her Henrico County home.

Under the city’s own policies, public property is not supposed to be sold unless the city has formally declared it surplus and gone through a competitive bidding process. However, the city hasn’t been following that policy and often passes ordinances that declare a property surplus and approve a sale to a particular buyer at the same time. That speeds up and streamlines the process, but serves as a workaround to the rule requiring competition.

With McQuinn’s offer, some Council members felt there should have been a competitive process to ensure fairness. Others felt it would be unfair to apply the city’s written policy to McQuinn if it wasn’t being applied to everyone. With no clear resolution, the proposal to sell the land to McQuinn was pulled off the Council’s agenda in January and has not been re-added.

With the Planned Parenthood transaction, the city passed a single ordinance that declared the property surplus and authorized the sale at the same time. That process was part of the legal challenge brought by opponents of the planned clinic. A judge threw out the lawsuit on technical grounds, without getting into the allegation the city hadn’t followed its own rules.

Despite the Council’s surplus declaration two years ago, the parcel was not on the city’s most recent list of properties deemed surplus and available for purchase. The current assessed value of the one-acre property is $1.36 million, with $738,000 in land value and $620,000 in improvement value.

Hinkle confirmed the Council’s 2024 vote meant the parcel should have been included on the surplus list. On Friday, he said the city would update the surplus list to include the Chamberlayne property.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org