City Council Votes to Sell Lakewood Church Building (Summit being bought)

Did you hear what he Silverdome sold for?

7.5 Mil is alright.

 

The city is getting ripped off. The lease was 750k/year. The land alone must be worth more then 10 mil.

 

$15M would have been a bit more fair, but considering the lease was weak for the city to begin with, getting it out of the city's hands will help.

 

Depends on what the city was forfeiting in property taxes and paying in maintenance. If it was $750k or more, then the city was going to be losing that money for the next 50 years. And they were limited in their negotiating power - who's going to buy the building if it comes with a 50 yr lease on it?

Now, they get the upfront money, the savings on maintenance, and they will start collecting annual property taxes. The latter two may be far more valuable than an extra few million they might have been able to negotiate upfront.

 

are taxes the same for nonprofit organizations like churches?

 

is it really nonprofit when that famous pastor makes like 20 million or something?

 

How completely idiotic. After the lease, the building could be leveled, and the lot alone would be worth a bazillion. Build some high-dollar structures on it and it's worth even more.

Councilman Al Hoang said he cast a decisive vote in the deal, and although the had to be done, he said he’s not happy about it.

"Am I satisfied with this deal? No. Do I think we've been put in a bind? Yes," said Hoang in a press release. "If we don't sell now, we could have another Astrodome dilemma in our hands in 60 years when the lease is up -- not being able to find a buyer of a decaying facility which by then will be almost a century old."

What a ridiculously terrible comparison. The land that the dome is on isn't worth nearly the same amount. He's either amazingly dumb, or he's full of crap.

 

i think he's both

 

It didn't matter who got the property they would be getting taxes.

Does lakewood pay taxes?

 

Income taxes wouldn't be - but they should still be paying property taxes, as far as I know.

 

Right - but that only happens if they sell it. Right now, they aren't getting anything in property taxes.

The problem is how are you going to sell a building to someone if there's a low-rate lease locked in for the next 50 years? Who's going to pay a lot for that property when they'd be stuck with a low source of revenue and a high level of taxes / maintenance/etc. Over time, the building's going to get older, meaning more maintenance, and the property value will go up, meaning higher taxes. Meanwhile, it seems the lease stays at $750k per year. In 20 or 30 years, that's going to mean huge annual losses.

I think the lease was the most restrictive part - it just limits the number of potential bidders to pretty much one (or someone who has a 50+ year time horizon). So that left Lakewood with all the negotiating leverage.

 

Here's some more on it:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6752371.html

Most interesting is that Lakewood already paid the entirety of the first 30 year lease - so the city would get no revenues from keeping it the next 20 years. Now would any other buyer, which makes it pointless for anyone else to purchase it.

 

he's got $20 million in his heavenly bank account.

 

I guess the curse will cont.