ROCKFORD — Sunil Puri's phone rang a little after 10 a.m. on a Thursday. On the other end was Mayor Tom McNamara, who was scrambling to find a site for the Illinois National Guard to mobilize a mass vaccination center and figured the developer could offer advice, if not property.
The city had spent the past few days searching for suitable locations, but on that Thursday morning, it learned the owners of the two sites it had in mind planned to charge $15,000 and $25,000 per month for a lease.
"That was just not doable," McNamara said.
About 24 hours after calling Puri on Feb. 18, the city had a lease for its mass vaccination site. The fastest time to complete a lease his company had ever done, Puri said. But this lease would only cost $1.