First Monday leases gets council look

At the May 17 meeting, the Canton City Council considered a draft of the lease agreements for buildings on First Monday grounds.

“If you look at current leases now, none of them are the same,” said First Monday Director Linda Boston. “We have an individual, and possibly more than one, interested in building at First Monday since the moratorium has been lifted on building. What we need to do is develop a lease that is beneficial to the city and beneficial to the builder. It’s just that simple.”

Although there are leases currently on the grounds, they are all different, Boston said.

“We need one standard lease and stay with it,” said City Manager Lonny Cluck.

Cluck recommended that the lease agreement allow subleasing. “I think we should allow it,” he said, “because people will be more successful. I think if there’s another big building that needs to be buildt, the city needs to build it.”

“In the area we’re allowing them to build, I don’t think anybody can survive if they have to put too much of their own occupancy in there,” Boston said. “But instead of getting $600 a year, we’ll be getting $7,200 a year.”

Lots are 240 square feet, so if a building is 2,400 square feet it occupies 10 lots.

“No subleasing is going hurt,” Cluck said. “So far every lease we have on the ground allows subleasing.”

Building owners would be required to notify the First Monday office of subleasers and those subletting would need to get parking permits.

The area where building is being contemplated is on the east side of the creek near Trade Centers I and II in the area leading to the senior citizen’s center. 

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