$14.5 million purchase of Vegas office building OK’d

By Emily Richmond

Friday, April 29, 2005 | 11:08 a.m.

The Clark County School Board voted Thursday to spend $14.5 million for an office building at 5100 West Sahara Avenue that will serve as a temporary solution to an ongoing space crunch.

Located between Edmond Street and South Decatur Boulevard, the four-story building has 66,645 square feet of office space and a three-story parking structure.

The district currently spends more than $931,000 annually to rent 68,044 square feet of office space at a variety of sites throughout the district. In some cases the district has had to put off filling vacant positions because there's been nowhere to put the new employees, said Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia.

The purchase price works out to $225 per square foot, and includes the land, parking garage, office furniture, rugs and window coverings. The cost of building a similar structure, provided an adequate site was available, would be at least $250 per square foot, said Walt Rulffes, the district's deputy superintendent of operations.

The School Board, on a 4-1 vote, approved the purchase provided funds aren't diverted from the $58 million earmarked for a new technology campus, that would house district police operations, KLVX Channel 10, the virtual high school program and the district's technology and information systems department.

Rulffes said his office will allocate money from sources other than the general fund for the purchase. Some of the sources include the district's building and sites fund, the GovernmentalServices Tax capital fund.

Clark County School Board member Shirley Barber, who abstained from the vote, said she would prefer to see the $14.5 million go to schools that are badly in need of repair. Rulffes said the cost of the building would be covered by funds specifically intended for nonschool facilities that could not otherwise be used by the district.

School Board member Sheila Moulton voted against the purchase, saying she was uncomfortable approving such an expenditure when so many of the district's campuses are overcrowded.

"I have to face those students and those families," Moulton said. "The perception is that if we buy that building we're taking care of ourselves just fine but leaving our kids' needs unattended."

The property, known as the Larry Glenn Townes Administration Building, has been appraised at $15 million by an independent appraiser hired by the district to inspect the site, Rulffes said.

Once the sale goes through, decisions will be made as to who will take up occupancy of the various offices, Rulffes said. The purchase is expected to eliminate "100 percent" of the leases currently paid out of the district's general fund, Rulffes said.

With construction costs expected to rise more than 15 percent over the next year, it makes sense to buy a "turnkey" property, said School Board member Susan Brager-Wellman, who is also a Realtor.

"Sahara and Decatur is an older location but it's a prime location," Brager-Wellman said. "I don't see this in any way as a bad decision."