Cookeville City Council will have a work session with the Public Building Authority to discuss the future needs of the Leslie Town Centre on Monday.
City Manager James Mills said that the Centre has asked the city to cover the full cost of several major repair projects.
“The city is the primary owner of the building and it’s in our best interest that the building remain in good shape,” Mills said. “And we spent quite a bit of money building the building, but the lease specifies that the cost of major repairs such as the roof or HVAC system, the cost for those would be split between the PBA and the city.”
Mills said that questions originally rose after the PBA needed to replace a portion of an aged HVAC system. He said that the PBA had already done so, but now requests the city cover the entire cost.
“And they based that on the fact that they’ve indicated that the impact due to the pandemic, their revenue is down,” Mills said. “And I think that’s probably true because one of their primary sources of revenue is the rental of meeting space and that has definitely trended down because of the pandemic. And for that reason they’ve asked the city to cover the entire cost which, again, is not in the lease. And I don’t know that the city council is against that, but they would like to gather more information from the PBA’s financial and operational status before deciding on whether they want to fund the entire cost for the HVAC replacement.”
Mills said that the city established the PBA in 2002 to run the day-to-day operations of the Leslie Town Centre. He said that it is their responsibility through a lease to operate and maintain the Leslie Town Centre.
Mills said that the meeting will hopefully provide more information to determine how the city and the Leslie Town Centre can work together in the future.
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