School board approves lease of Southern Design building for new central office

VIDALIA, La. — A lease for the former Southern Design building on Carter Street has been approved by the Concordia Parish School Board to house its central office with some disagreement among board members.

A motion to lease the building with 12 office spaces, a kitchen area and storage space for $5,000 per month for 12 months narrowly passed on Thursday by a vote of 5 to 4.

The lease was one of at least four different options negotiated to lease the building.

The first, which was presented in April, the school board approved with some contingencies.

The lease would’ve included only 10 office spaces in the building for six months for $3,600 per month. However, the school board wanted an option to extend the lease for another six months to a year in order to make it feasible to equip the building with a fiber hookup to its internet provider. The previous lease also included language that said if the school board failed to submit a “written termination” of the lease after six months, it would automatically be tied to another 36 months.

Another lease option was drafted and voted down during a special meeting in June.

One of the options included leasing 10 office spaces in the building with an additional 500 square feet of warehouse storage space for $4,000 a month plus paying one-third of property taxes and insurance. The second option is to lease the entire property for $15,000 monthly and pay all property taxes and insurance. Also, should the board choose to purchase the property within 12 months, the entire contribution would go towards the $1.8 million purchase price.

However, some members of the school board did not like the payment of property taxes being required without knowing the actual cost.

It would be like writing a “blank check,” said board member Vannessa Houck.

The option introduced and approved Thursday removes the requirement to pay property taxes and adds additional office spaces and a kitchenette for an additional $1,000 per month than was introduced previously. The option to purchase the property within 12 months and all lease payments go toward the $1.8 million purchase price remains.

A motion to accept this lease was made Thursday by Wayne Wilson and seconded by Matt Taunton. Board members Fred Marsalis Sr., Houck, Wilson, Lisette Foreman and Taunton all voted in favor of the motion while Fred Butcher, Dorothy Parker, Derrick Carson and Angela Hayes voted no.

In another action, the school board voted unanimously to seek another attorney to represent the school board in civil action dealing with its existing central office building, which cannot be used because of mold and measures taken to remove it — the building now lacks carpet and its walls have been halfway gutted.

Central office workers have been displaced since September 2022. Since then, the district has been borrowing the Vidalia Town Hall for board meetings and utilizing the parish media center on John Dale Drive, which doesn’t have the space for students and their families to attend regular board meetings.

The building is being leased by the school board from Joby Weeks of Vidalia for $2,500 a month. “The lease is going up to $10,000 per month on the building we can’t use because of mold,” Wilson said Thursday.

The lease expires in August 2026 but states the school board is responsible for maintaining the building and that it must be restored to the condition it was in when the school board moved in over 23 years ago.

“Our landowner thinks that we owe him approximately $700,000 to put (the existing central office) back to where he thinks it should be for us to terminate our lease,” Foreman said at the June board meeting, adding she does not think keeping the current central office building is an option.

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