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Monday, September 08, 2014

RAMSEY: City Hall office rental space is available. A suitable tenant is sought.

ABC Newspapers reports of the rental opportunity:

Ramsey looking to lease more space in city hall
By Eric Hagen - September 3, 2014 at 4:36 pm


The city of Ramsey is looking to lease 3,029 square feet of space at its municipal center in The COR and may enlist a local broker for assistance.

[...] Patrick Brama, assistant to the city administrator, said Aug. 27 that Premier would be asked to market the property if city administration cannot find any leads in the next 45 days. Premier would only be paid on commission and not before any deal is finalized, Brama said.

“At this point we don’t have a need for the space,” City Administrator Kurt Ulrich said. [...]

The 68,000 square-foot municipal center constructed in 2006 was designed to be the long-term city office home, so extra space was built in to accommodate growth of city staff or other office needs.

Ramsey in 2010 started leasing 2,600 square feet to the Anoka County License Center. Whether the new user would be a non-profit or for-profit entity does not matter to the city, Brama said, but he said it would be some type of “professional service group.”

“We’d avoid things that are politically sensitive and we’d look for a tenant that can work in harmony with the intent of this building and its existing uses,” Brama said.

At this point, the city is asking for $18.50 per square foot for a five-year lease.

So, roughly comparable in area to the Licensing Center on the ground floor, at an asking price of $18.50 a sq.ft.

With a five year lease sought, it appears the city does not anticipate staff expansion to a point requiring an early ouster of a tenant, although one expects there would be some form of ouster clause in the lease.

This is a sign of fiscal care on the part of city government. Any rental income would go into the same general fund to which taxpayer revenue goes, offsetting taxation by an equal amount.

Credit is due to an earlier council's first renting ground floor space to the drivers licensing office. I have been told that Colin McGlone originated the idea to generate a city rental income that way. That was an excellent idea, and the licensing use is a good fit for the space; i.e., offering a combination of income generation for Ramsey while providing the public a conveniently accessed local license location for a service previously located along a busy Highway 10 stretch where auto ingress-egress was an adventure.

A continuing effort to optimize use of city hall space is a good sign.