Civic Centre delays cost £750,000
DELAYS in selling off the Civic Centre look set to gobble up £750,000 of the council's budget next year.
The landmark Grade II-listed building was put up for sale in October 2010 – but a bidding war is still in full swing.
The £750,000 has been set aside to help the council keep up with spiralling maintenance costs, finance chief Councillor Mark Lowry said.
A report Cabinet members will see next week warns there is a "significant backlog in maintenance obligations" across the authority.
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The draft 2013/14 budget lists "uncertainties" over the future of the 1962 tower as one of the council's key risks for the year.
The £750,000 has been allocated to the council's accommodation strategy from a £1.77million chunk of cash set aside to offset several 'one-off pressures' forecast for 2013/14.
More than 20 organisations eyeing the building attended a bidders' day in the summer and several are due to meet with council chiefs again this week.
The authority wants to sell the freehold with the vision of the upper floors being turned into a high-end hotel.
Most of its 1,000-strong Civic Centre-based workforce would move out, though the council would seek to lease back 4,100 square metres of the building.
It hopes to agree a contract with a developer in June.
"We have a number of pretty attractive solutions we're currently working through," Cllr Lowry added.
Comments
by Waltersmith
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 10:53PM
“@timplymouth
Brasilia”
by jabbathebutt
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 10:33PM
“Force the ones that made it a grade 2 listed building to pay for it with their own money .... as they found it so important . Easy to play with other peoples money isnt it ? Monopoly money it is not ! .”
by timplymouth
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 10:33PM
“How can anyone think bare concrete looks good?
null”
by Waltersmith
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 10:16PM
“@timplymouth
It is a brilliant building of its time and thoroughly deserved its status - it will get Grade 1 soon.
My earlier comment was pithy/sarcastic/ironic etc”
by timplymouth
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 9:38PM
“puffing_billy: How were they to know it would be listed? No-one from the council asked for it to be listed. The people who listed it don't even live in Plymouth so they don't have to look at the ugly thing all the time. The council were going to demolish the awful monstrosity and redevelop the site, which was a good idea. They may not have maintained it very well, but why would you where you are planning to knock it down? This mess is English Heritage's fault for forcing Plymouth to keep a building we don't want.”
by Waltersmith
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 6:06PM
“Why not give it to SHH and pay them to renovate to so they can rent it back to the council for exhorbitant fees?”
by puffing_billy
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 11:51AM
“They should have flogged it off BEFORE it was listed. No-one wants to buy a derelict building they can't knock-down.”
by OutsideView
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 11:51AM
“by bongaloo
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 11:25AM
.
"The new building would be ecological and green and cheap to run, using modern technology for energy consumption and so on...
Don't bet on it.
It would still need to be properly maintained.
Past performance is a good predictor of future performance!”
by Shaynerer
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 11:32AM
“Lease it out for personal storage, people's old junk will not be troubled by the drafts, no complex, expensive conversions required, just upgraded lifts.
Make the lease about ten years which should be about right for being in the middle of the next stupid property bubble when some muppet will buy it.
Doesn't release the capital for a shiny new council HQ till then but never mind. Just t*rt-up the big office building at Millbay, opened to great fanfare in the early 1980s.”
by bongaloo
Wednesday, December 05 2012, 11:25AM
“sell it, knock it down build something interesting and nice to look at not just student flats...move essential services to Derry's and the rest out of town or on the edge of town, to a new building, built from the profits of selling the existing building.The new building would be ecological and green and cheap to run, using modern technology for energy consumption and so on...
OR is that too much forward thinking and new for Plymouth?”