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Posted: 9:30 a.m.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Middletown pays $20K to buy back
building it donated to company
By
Mike Rutledge
Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN —
City
and elected officials have few details about why it cost $20,000 to buy back a
building the city donated four years ago, but they remain confident that the
structure can be a valuable asset in the future.
http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/middletown-looks-to-buy-back-former-senior-center-/nq8WD/" rel="nofollow - at the
southwest corner of Columbia
Avenue and Verity Parkway. This is the same building
the city it donated four years ago for use by Cincinnati State Technical &
Community College, but the school does not have plans to use it.
Before
the 5-0 vote, City Manager Doug Adkins said the $20,000 purchase price
represents costs that Higher Education Partners, owners of the building, “have
incurred to date in purchasing and carrying costs associated with the building,
in lieu of putting it back out for sale.”
According
to Journal-News articles, the city donated the building to Higher Education
Partners in 2012. HEP http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/vacant-county-office-could-become-part-of-cincinna/nTPd6/" rel="nofollow - building.
Adkins
clarified his comments Thursday to the Journal-News in an email, writing, “We
donated the building but there were still legal costs, etc., associated with
the transfer” in an email.
The
$20,000 figure was provided by HEP to the city without detail, according to
Adkins.
“They
obviously had some utility, insurance costs, etc., over the past 3-4 years that
I assume without knowing, went into that number.”
Asked
whether the city had asked for an itemized list of those costs, he wrote: “No.”
“That
was the price if we wanted the building back,” Adkins wrote in an email. “The
detail wasn’t going to change the discussion or the decision.”
Officials
from HEP on Thursday did not respond to a request for comment.
“Cincinnati State does not have have a future use
for that building,” Adkins told members of council before their vote.
“It’s
in our best interest to take that building back and protect that use,” he said.
The
city approved the $20,000 purchase as an emergency measure — meaning
consideration was needed at just one council meeting.
Because
the city charter discourages use of one-meeting decisions — partly because they
limit the opportunity for the public to comment on pending council decisions —
at least four of council’s five members must be present at a meeting, and all
present must vote to consider legislation on an emergency basis.
Asked
why he recommended city council approve the legislation as an emergency
measure, Adkins declined to give his reason.
“HEP
stated why they intended to transfer the building now verbally and asked that
we not share that information,” he wrote in an email to the Journal-News.
Council
Member Steve Bohannon said Thursday he realized the city was buying a building
it had donated to HEP, and did so without seeing a list of the costs the
organization claimed it had paid.
“No,
we have not seen any kind of an itemized list as to what the costs they have
incurred over the last four years with the building,” he said.
“They
just came to us and said, ‘We’ve got $20,000 tied up in it so far, and if you
want it, if you’re willing to pay us back what we’ve got in it, then that’s
what we’ll do for you,’ ” Bohannon said.
Before
the vote, Council Member Talbott Moon asked Adkins whether he saw the building
having value in the future, given recent interest in revitalizing the city’s
downtown.
“I
think you said it exactly right: It’s in the future,” Adkins answered. “That
building does have some mechanical issues that we’re going to have to address,
but there is room in that building, it’s got a fair amount of footprint.”
City
offices could be put in the building, some of it could be rented out, “or we
get a developer to use it for another purpose,” he said. “I think, yes, as time
goes on it has more value.”
City
officials have three options for the building, according to Adkins: sell it,
either with or without a real-estate agent; “renovate it and use the space for
city functions”; or “demolish and use it for green space or park space.”
Bohannon
said he considered the transaction a good deal for Middletown: “It’s a good building in town,
and it’s right where we want we want it to be, right next to our city building,
so we can utilize it for things regarding the city. We can possibly make
offices out of it and things like that, which would help us with our
overcrowding we’ve got in the city building, so there’s a lot of different
options we could go with. We could even put it out there for bid, and try to
sell it to the general public.”
The
council also approved six other other resolutions and ordinances Tuesday, each
of them designated emergency legislation. Among them were:
·
An ordinance for a $425,000 loan agreement with the Ohio
Department of Transportation to build a two-lane access road from Union Road to the
proposed AK Steel Research and Innovation
Center and the paving of
several roads;
·
An ordinance allowing the city to spend $42,375 to rehabilitate
production well No. 7, which in 1999 produced 4 million gallons per day but now
provides about half that; and
·
An ordinance that turns over to Butler County MetroParks its
easement with the Miami Conservancy District, allowing the park system to
assume control of Bicentennial Commons and the AK Pavilion.
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