- April 18, 2024
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City Manager Jim Landon said it would take about two years to build and design a City Hall.
Although the city will renew its lease at City Marketplace, officials said Tuesday that they want to keep their options open and will consider building a City Hall.
The Palm Coast City Council was presented Tuesday with a 3.5-year lease agreement to stay at City Marketplace, where it has paid $240,000 a year in rent payments since it located there in November 2008.
But instead of signing the lease, city officials directed City Manager Jim Landon to counteroffer a three-year lease with the landlord, BB&T.
When the property went into foreclosure last year, the city placed its rent payments in an escrow account. The lease would be backdated to Nov. 1, 2011, and so those six months will go toward the new lease.
Shortening the lease could coincide with the construction of a City Hall, likely in Town Center.
The issue of a City Hall has been hotly discussed by residents — most notably in 2005, when 82% of the voters denied a new facility.
However, the tide may be turning, as a handful of residents who spoke at Tuesday night’s meeting were in support of a City Hall.
Over the past 6.5 years, the city has paid approximately $1.5 million in rent payments. “We have nothing to show for that,”
Landon said last week.
The current lease calls for a monthly rent payment of $20,000. The first year of the new lease, which would run until April 30, 2013, the monthly payment would be $17,000. The second full year, May 2013 to April 2014, would be $19,000 per month. The final year would be $20,000.
Michael Chiumento, owner of the City Center office building in Town Center, said the city should consider flexibility in its lease in case it wants to build a City Hall.
“I think for a city of our size and stature, a City Hall is well overdue,” Chiumento said. “And a City Hall would certainly provide some economic stimulus to our community in a much-needed time.”
According to Landon, it would take a year for design and a year for construction of a City Hall.
Though funding approval for a City Hall could appear on the ballot in November, officials want to make sure their homework is done.
“Long before we put anything on the ballot, we had better have every duck lined up,” Mayor Jon Netts said Tuesday.
Landon believed BB&T would accept the shortened lease — which would expire Nov. 1, 2014, as opposed to April 2015. But if not, the lease will come back before the City Council at its May 15 regular meeting.
“Whether we open discussions about a City Hall or whatever ... it’s not going to happen tomorrow, and we still have to have a place to live, work and play for the next some period of time,” Netts said.
Internet cafés regulated
The nine Internet cafés throughout Palm Coast will now be regulated after the City Council gave its final approval Tuesday night. City officials will allow window tinting — a change from the initial recommended regulation. For previous coverage, search “Internet cafés” at www.PalmCoastObserver.com.
