Plano is preparing to sell the 2.81 acres of city-owned land under a downtown apartment complex, ending a ground lease that dates to the years when the area was being readied for DART rail.
A request on the City Council's Nov. 9 consent agenda would let staff negotiate a sale of the property at 1013 15th Place and 1545 K Avenue to CONTI Texas Organization, Inc. for $850,000. The council meets at 7 p.m. in the Senator Florence Shapiro Council Chambers. Consent items are typically approved together in a single vote.
How the city came to own it
The city bought several parcels at the northwest corner of K Avenue and 15th Place between 1991 and 2000, working with DART ahead of the Red Line and the Downtown Plano Station, according to a staff summary from Special Projects Director Peter Braster. The city then leased the ground to a developer who built a mixed-use project with 245 apartments on two lots.
The buildings, now called the LINK at Plano, have changed hands several times since.
When the buildings went up for sale this year, the city hired the listing brokerage, Newmark, to market its land alongside them. Staff wrote that pairing the land with the buildings would draw more buyers, reduce the city's long-term involvement and make future redevelopment more likely when the market allows.
What the city gives up
The sale is not a money-maker over time, by staff's own account. The city now collects $67,678 a year under the ground lease, and staff expects the property taxes the lots would generate once privately owned to be less than that. The sale would bring in $850,000 once.
