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Mostly Cloudy $20 million for new 1st Precinct?
County may pay landlord rent, property taxes over 30-year period
The 1st Precinct lease deal may not be a win-win for taxpayers after all.
The 45-page lease document obtained by the Herald states that the county will be paying both the property taxes and the rent on the facility for the greater part of 30 years if the proposed lease between Baldwin landlord David Rosen and Nassau County is approved by the county Legislature next month.
According to the lease, while the county will not pay rent on the precinct facility for the first year, it will pay $225,000 per year in rent to the landlord for five years after that (for a total of $1.12 million). That payment will gradually increase over five-year periods to $346,190 per year by the end of the 30-year lease. In addition, county officials estimate that they will pay $160,000 a year in property taxes on the facility, but that figure will likely change over time. Those costs, as well as those incurred by the landlord during the construction and/or renovation process, would also be billed to the county, and ultimately Nassau taxpayers.
Legislator Joe Scannell (D-Baldwin) has been touting the lease deal as one that will save taxpayers money because Rosen can come up with a design and complete the construction of the precinct more quickly and cheaply than the county can. Scannell said that if the county were to purchase and construct its own precinct, it would cost approximately $14 million. With the lease and a private developer, county officials estimate that it will cost up to $9.7 million, but Scannell said he believes the cost will ultimately be about $7 million, including the design. That money has been approved and currently sits in the county's Capital Project for the Renovation and Modernization of Police Precincts fund.
But if the lease remains as is throughout the 30-year period, the overall cost — which includes the design, construction, property taxes and rent — would amount to approximately $20 million when using Scannell's conservative $7 million estimate for the construction and design work, not including any unforeseen costs over that period.
