A possible new location for the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections office was one of the topics deliberated at the County Commission meeting Tuesday.
Commissioners unanimously agreed to begin negotiations with Nalbandian Properties for the property located on 515 N. Main St.
Commissioner Robert Hutchinson said he believes it’s the right time to tie up plans for the building.
“It would be stupid to have a long conversation about who gets what and find out that someone has already purchased the building,” he said at the meeting.
County staff will be negotiating a lease-purchase agreement, which would allow the county to buy the property outright or to buy it after leasing.
Michael Fay, county development program manager, said the county is trying to eliminate the lease space it currently occupies, which costs about $500,000 a year.
“We will take a strong, hard look at what the space needs to be — at what offices we would put in this particular structure,” he said.
The building is estimated to cost about $5.65 million.
Also at the meeting, Strike Out Hunger Food Drive held a presentation. Rodney Long, president and CEO of The Long Foundation Inc., highlighted a decrease in donations for the Thanksgiving food drive.
He said the drive collected $60,000 pounds of food in 2013. In 2012, the food drive collected about $78,000 pounds of food.
He attributed the decrease to a lack of major contributors and said he will start planning for the drive earlier.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 2/26/2014 under the headline “Commission discusses new office location, food drives"]
