New lease will cost $3,200 more a month for three months; time needed to finish rehab of police headquarters

Peachtree City staff will ask the city council tonight to extend the lease on its temporary police headquarters a second time for a three-month period.

This time it will cost the city an extra $3,223 a month for a "common maintenance fee," according to a memo supplied to the City Council. That cost will be on top of the $12,560 lease plus utilities, which is just $10 more than the previous lease requires.

The matter will be discussed at tonight's council meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

Extending the lease will allow contractors to finish renovating the city's police station by Nov. 14, giving the department 30 days to move back. There has been significant work to the interior and exterior to keep moisture from entering the building, which has been blamed for the buildup of mold and mildew. Crews must also remove the mold from the building before it can be re-occupied.

Police have been in the temporary headquarters for roughly a year, and this is the second three-month extension of the lease, though the original nine-month lease included an option for just one three-month extension.

The building is owned by PTC Properties, whose CEO is J.D. Holmes.

The building opened in March 2001 and errors found in the construction have led the city to file a lawsuit against the architect of the project: Don Cobb and Associates of Peachtree City. The contractor, Leslie Contracting of Fayetteville, reached a settlement with the city that called for Leslie to perform some work on the building rehab for free, with the city reimbursing it for other work.

All the new work is being done under the supervision of the Leo A. Daly architectural firm. The R.L. Ward contracting firm is conducting the rehab work which includes replacing and reconfiguring the building's heating, ventilation and cooling system and sealing the foundation to help keep out moisture.

The city is also reconfiguring the site grading to help keep water from pooling up at the building's perimeter.

The lease will be paid with funds from a construction loan the city received to fund the building rehabilitation project, according to the staff memo.