A legislative conference committee has agreed to fund one month of the lease for the new MSP headquarters, giving them time to get a final bill to the House and Senate to be approved. So it looks like the State Police will move into the new building in January.
Actually, reports today say that in order to save money over the long term, they are actually just going to buy it, outright, after one year for $52 million. They will lease it for a dollar for 2010, and then bond out the purchase after the one-year dollar lease.
I fully expected the State to by this building before the lease was up, but they're really doing this quick. I wonder how much money they will really be saving after paying one years lease, buying the building for $52 million ($7 million more than it cost to build), and then they will still have to sell bonds and pay out interest on those. I can't imagine the savings will be anything fantastic, but I guess it makes the politicians look good.
When the paper reported on this last week, they estimated the savings to be upwards of $40 million. The lease option was $3.7 million for 25 years which comes out to $92.5, and they'll now be bonding out for $52 million.
Yeah, I did expect them to buy it before the least is up. They always do that, which the Anderson House Office Building being another example of this. In fact, I think a Friday LSJ article reported that the city was so unsure of how this whole thing was going to go that they didn't even consider the building in their revenue projections, so losing the property taxes doesn't throw any of their projections out of whack.
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http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090923/NEWS01/309230006
Yeah, I did expect them to buy it before the least is up. They always do that, which the Anderson House Office Building being another example of this. In fact, I think a Friday LSJ article reported that the city was so unsure of how this whole thing was going to go that they didn't even consider the building in their revenue projections, so losing the property taxes doesn't throw any of their projections out of whack.