The city may have found a buyer for the former senior center building at 1005 O St., though the offer is substantially less than the appraised value of the building.
REV Development — which is renovating the nearby Gold’s Building — wants to buy the building for $500,000, demolish the existing building and build a 157-apartment building with underground parking, retail space and a landscaped courtyard.
The mixed-use development would be built on the site of the former senior center as well as the lot just to the east that REV Development already owns. The vacant building on that lot also would be demolished.
The downtown center closed in April, about a month before the new center opened at 600 S. 70th St. — part of the $100 million redevelopment of the Veterans Administration Hospital Grounds.
But the city has advertised the sale of the building for nearly a year, said Urban Development Director Dan Marvin, and while they’d been contacted by a few people, this was the only offer.
The Lancaster County Assessor’s Office has valued the property at $2.5 million for 2023, which Marvin said was similar to an appraisal done on the property.
Just the land, though, is valued at $447,300, and because the developer plans to demolish the building, the sale price is based on the land value.
“The world we live in now doesn’t value old office space very highly,” Marvin said. And repurposing old office buildings into apartments can be difficult because they often don’t have enough windows.
REV Development is renovating the Gold’s Building. The southern addition to the old department store has been demolished, and the $22 million project includes turning the six-story northern portion into a 104-room Hampton Inn hotel, along with some office and retail space.
Demolition of the building at 1023 O St. — next door to the former senior center — was already part of the plan, along with the courtyard. If REV Development buys the land at 1005 O St., that courtyard would become part of the residential building, though it may still be for public use as well.
The city and county jointly own the former senior center, and Marvin, along with Randy Jones, director of aging partners, recently sought guidance from the County Board on the possible sale.
Though some members were concerned about the low sale price, they ultimately gave city and aging officials the go-ahead to update the interlocal agreement between the city and county regarding the building that would allow for the sale.
The new $5.7 million center in Victory Park is being financed through non-voter-approved bonds, called certificates of participation, issued by the city for a number of projects.
The payback schedule figured in the sale of the building at $1.5 million, city officials said, so the city and aging partners would have to find a way to make up that difference if the building sold for less.
The potential sale is still in the early stages: it will be back before the County Board and the City Council must approve the sale.
A convention center incentive
There’s a clause in the turnback tax bill passed by the Legislature this session aimed at helping pay for a Lincoln convention center that provides an incentive to locate it near the Capitol.
The bill extended provisions in the state’s convention center facility financing assistance act, which allows cities to use 70% of state sales tax revenue collected by hotels and retailers within 600 yards of the convention center to help pay for it.
That 600-yard zone must be around the convention center itself — unless it is located within 600 yards of the Capitol. Then the zone doesn’t have to be contingent to the center, though it still can’t be more than 600 yards.
Lincoln Sen. Eliot Bostar, who introduced the bill, said that clause recognizes that if the convention center uses the turnback tax, it is essentially a partnership between the city and state, which creates an incentive to locate it close to the hub of state government.
There’s often a shortage of meeting space for state government operations, Bostar said, and having a convention center close by would be helpful.
The other reason to allow more flexibility for a site close to the Capitol: there are very few retail spaces there that collect state sales tax, and that puts those sites at a disadvantage, Bostar said.
Of the five potential convention center sites identified by a feasibility study, at least one is close enough to the Capitol to take advantage of that flexibility: the one adjacent to the Cornhusker Marriott Hotel at 13th and M streets.
Rain, rain keep on fallin’
On Sunday and Monday, Lincoln residents’ water use dropped to the lowest point this month and, while voluntary water restrictions could be having an impact, Mother Nature certainly did.
Steve Owen, the city’s superintendent of water production, said it has rained twice since the city imposed voluntary water restrictions June 2. The first was June 1 — the day city officials announced the restrictions — and again Saturday and early Sunday.
On June 1 and 2, city residents used 47.7 and 48.2 million gallons of water, respectively. Then it went up — twice over the 60 million gallons-a-day cap city officials are aiming for with the restrictions. On Sunday and Monday — after the second rain — those totals dropped to 44 million gallons a day.
Owen thinks the restrictions mean it's more likely people are turning off their underground sprinkler systems if it rains, rather than just letting them run.
It's a good reminder, with a 40% chance of rain toward the end of this week, Owen said.
“Don’t water this week in anticipation of that,” he said.