Nugget Project: City working on a lease-to-own deal for library
Last week, I sat down with Joe McCarthy, head of Carson City's Office of Business Development, and he provided some details about the Nugget Project that I hadn't heard before.
The biggest nugget is that the city is pursuing a 30-year, lease-to-own deal for the proposed library/discovery center and the land it sits on. McCarthy said that is the way the deal with P3 Development for the building will be, and that they are working to get the same deal for the land from the Hop and Mae Adams Foundation.
The idea of a permanent lease payment on the land sitting under the new library has been a major bone of contention for the skeptics of the Nugget Project. Paying lease payments in perpetuity was seen as "encumbering future generations." After all, if you are planning to live in a house for 50+ years, do you rent, or do you buy?
McCarthy said that profits of the payments made to the Adams Foundation from all the land for this project would come back to the city in the form of a fund to be used to obtain grants that require matching funds. The idea, according to McCarthy, is to keep the money from just being used on general expenses, and to make the library more entrepreneurial. The funds could also be used for the business incubator.
Hopefully next month there will be more details available as P3 Development fleshes out its plans for this project. Stay tuned.