FORT SMITH, Ark. — In a special meeting Tuesday night, the Fort Smith Board of Directors decided to table a resolution approving a lease agreement for city offices and parking spaces in Downtown Fort Smith.
The lease agreement would be a five-year term and include the whole building, as currently the city only leases three floors and two partial floors.
"Tonight's discussion was about should we lease the whole building, or should we just lease what we currently have, and then go back and ask for additional space," said Carl. E Geffken, City Administrator for the City of Fort Smith.
Geffken said the directors are now left with two options.
Option one would approve the resolution to allow the city to lease the whole building. The city would have to pay for maintenance, utilities, real estate taxes and insurance. Geffken said this would allow more employees to work at City Hall and create much more space.
"We have several departments that are cramped, departments that use large drawings there and are still in small spaces," Geffken said. "It really would have helped us solidify our position in downtown."
Option two would keep the current lease agreement and allow for gradual increases in space from the lesser.
"We're only maintaining the current space we have and then working with Mr. Littlefield to add more space which he has told me he's amenable to doing," Geffken said.
Some directors at Tuesday's meeting favored leasing the whole building as it would be a home for all departments.
"It's one of those things that we've always wanted, we've had part of the building, so that my thought is why not take the whole building, allow for our government to transform to what we want it to do to be more efficient for our public" said Kevin Settle, Position 6 Director at Large. "We need to be thinking how we want to present ourselves to the visitors and our new citizens coming to our cities over the next five years."
Some directors, however, feared the cost increase is too high. Rent would be $47,766.81 a month to lease the whole building.
"I think that we can lease additional space and come up with something that is much more economical for the city than taking on the whole building" said Lavon Morton, Position 3 Ward 3. "It's hard for me to justify doubling our ramp cost and then go to the people and say we're economizing anyway we can, but we just doubled our cost in the building that we occupy when somehow for 30 years we've survived with what we've got."
This resolution was presented to the Board Feb. 20 and tabled to a special meeting Tuesday night. The Board is set to make a decision on the issue at next Tuesday night's meeting on March 5.
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