DURHAM -- Durham County commissioners unanimously supported locating a regional mental health agency in a building owned by Triangle Transit, despite a private landlord's concerns about the deal.
Commissioners voted 5-0 late Monday to approve a nonbinding letter of intent to lease 55,000 square feet in an Imperial Center building, near the Page Road exit off Interstate 40.
The board also approved paying a $110,000 security deposit to Triangle Transit, a regional transportation authority serving Wake, Durham and Orange counties.
The building is to serve as headquarters and house 219 employees for a merged public mental health services agency in Durham and Wake counties. Wake commissioners approved the merger earlier this month, and Durham commissioners approved it Monday night.
The merged mental health agency plans to open in January 2013, but a lot has to be achieved in coming months to reach that goal, said Ellen Holliman, director of The Durham Center, which provides mental health services in Durham.
Neal Coker of Raleigh, whose partnership Pinnacle Park LLC owns a Durham building that the mental health collaboration considered, questioned the legality of the Triangle Transit purchase of the building. He also questioned whether the authority should be competing against private entities in the real estate market.
"In short, the TTA has spent unauthorized tax dollars to acquire private property, taking it out of the property tax stream, and rented it below market value in direct competition with private citizens who pay taxes," Coker wrote in a statement he submitted to commissioners.
Coker asked whether there was a conflict of interest among Triangle Transit, Durham County and Wake County. Both counties have appointed representatives on the Triangle Transit board, including Durham Commissioner Vice Chairwoman Ellen Reckhow, who heads the authority's board of directors.
Triangle Transit representatives said the purchase was legal and justified, and they have no concerns about leasing part of the building to the merged mental health agency.
"I understand that if someone is interested in having this tenant come and then they don't, there would be some disappointment," said Wib Gulley, the agency's general counsel.
Triangle Transit purchased the 75,000-square-foot building in December for $3.8 million after leasing it for about 3-1/2 years and paying $1.5 million to build a bus hub on it, Reckhow and Gulley said. The purchase of the building would save the authority money over the long haul and support an envisioned "regional town hall," they said.
"From the get-go we thought about the concept of a regional town hall in the sense we thought we could get other public sectors entities" to move into the regional center, Reckhow said. "We also thought we could provide affordable rents for public and quasi-public agencies."
Triangle Transit bought the building using its general fund money, which comes from vehicle registration taxes paid by residents in Durham, Orange and Wake counties. The commissioners' approval Monday allows the agency to begin making improvements to the building to accommodate the merged mental health agency and to draft a formal lease agreement.
The lease agreement, which will likely be effective July 1, must come back to the Durham commissioners for final approval. Several Wake County commissioners were critical of the deal, but that board's approval is not necessary to complete the transaction.
After the meeting, Coker said he plans to lobby against the deal every step of the way, and he questioned the wisdom of commissioners approving an $110,000 deposit "that will be worthless if we are successful."
