A quick and simple question for your Friday morning:
LPS has no district office and a patch of prime real estate on O Street. Should they keep the land and rebuild on the same location? Or should they sell the land -- it's probably worth in the vicinity of $4-$5 million -- and move to what will probably turn out to be a less desirable location? The central location is great for employee and community access. On the other hand, nothing LPS does with that property will ever come close to the property's true economic value. From that perspective it's better as retail or (tax-paying) office space.
I'm torn, but I'm leaning toward selling the land and moving elsewhere. What say you?
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I’m with you. If they need a central location for some community access, they can have separate offices for some things.
I’d sell. I don’t buy the whole centrally located thing anyway. It’s central from North to South, but not really from East to West anyway.
Anywhere you move it you will be closer to some and further from others than you were before. Would somebody quit their job over a longer drive?
The district already owns some other parcels of land. They can build on one of those, even if it means moving to the edge of the city. If you took the sale proceeds from the O Street property and the insurance proceeds, you can likely rebuild bigger and better than they had before and cover your costs.
A central location isn’t just about the employees’ convenience. Any employee travel around town on the LPS dime ultimately costs us more money. How much more? I couldn’t even begin to guess. But travel costs—both in terms of time and fuel—can’t be ignored.
Although…
StarTran is often touted as a convenient alternative to driving. As long as the new office(s) is/are on a bus route, we should be fine!
If they could sell the land and build on another spot for less money, I would be good with that. But if it’s cheaper to stay put and rebuild on the existing site, I would do that. Bottom line for me is the expense. Hopefully insurance is covering a lot of that.
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