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Dade City bought it -- now what?
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer
DADE CITY -- Faced with the possibility of lean budget years ahead, city commissioners on Tuesday evening suddenly turned their attention to Tampa Electric Co.'s former headquarters building that they bought earlier this year. Without money to refurbish it, commissioners found themselves wondering what to do with the 5,300-square-foot office building adjacent to City Hall that has been mostly vacant since TECO closed its headquarters in March. "I can't see us doing anything with that building for the next two years," Commissioner Bill Dennis said. "In the meantime, I would like to see us rent (out) some space in that building." The discussion came up when City Manager Doug Drymon announced that newly elected U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, wants to locate her Pasco County office in the TECO building. Dennis was all for it. Commissioner Hutch Brock agreed something should be done with the building, but said other businesses have been interested. Perhaps someone would want to rent the whole thing, he said. "This is a bigger thing than just a small section of the building," Brock said. "We need to look at the big picture here. We need to get our head out of the sand and market this building." The city used reserve funds in January to buy the building. The price was $320,000, but the city agreed to take the property as is for a credit of $36,348, dropping the price to $283,652. The plan was to possibly expand City Hall into the TECO building, but in August consultants reported it would take at least $2-million to bring the current three-story City Hall up to building codes. Instead, the city should abandon the building and spend $700,000 to $900,000 to renovate the TECO building and move in there, the study found. With little hope of a state grant to pay for that, and with a tight city budget, there would likely be no way the city could move into the TECO building in the next two years, Dennis said. TECO regional executive Ed Blommel is the only tenant so far. TECO rents a small office for him in the building under a 10-year lease that was part of the sale. Commissioners agreed to offer Brown-Waite a contract to rent part of the building, but with a 90-day escape clause if money appeared for a full-scale renovation.
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From today's Pasco Times |
