The county will be paying cash when it buys the Vectra Bank building on East Second Avenue next year. But officials will complete paperwork that helps keep the options open should they want to use the property as collateral to finance future projects, commissioners decided with a unanimous vote in a meeting Tuesday.
“We are really seizing the moment,” said Kellie Hotter, county commission chairwoman.
Officials began looking for a place to purchase in late 2010, putting out a call for bids from downtown property owners interested in selling. They ultimately decided this week to go with the Vectra Bank building built in 1989, which offers more than 13,000 square feet of space and 45 parking spaces.
The purchase will cost the county $2.7 million, money county officials plan to pull from the county’s reserves rather than obtain financing.
“Attempting to finance this acquisition at this time would be cost and time prohibitive,” a meeting document said.
No appraisal of the property was done before to the purchase negotiations, according to county documents.
Instead, officials looked to the county assessor’s valuation of $2.5 million while negotiating. The price bank and county officials landed on was “only 6 percent less than the negotiated price,” meeting documents point out.
“Having recently acquired property on (East) Second Avenue, we feel that (this is) a fair purchase price,” said Interim County Manager Joanne Spina.
It will cost another $800,000 to remodel the property, for a total cost of $3.5 million to taxpayers, documents said.
And Vectra Bank will be allowed to continue using portions of the building after the sale as they look to relocate to another downtown building. The bank has agreed to be gone by June 2013, said Sheryl Rogers, county attorney.
Officials hope to move some county staff and departments to the new bank building after the sale, which is expected to close in August. It will make room in the Courthouse for anticipated federal court functions that could move in down the line.
“(The purchase) gives us additional flexibility, whether or not the federal courthouse comes in,” Spina said, adding that the bank’s close proximity to the courthouse and other county offices will ultimately create “a fine campus for county government.”
Hotter called the acquisition “a substantial commitment to downtown.”
