Commissioners will take another crack at a policy for leasing government-owned facilities to nonprofits after members of a local theater troupe told them a proposed new rent structure could shut them down.
The commission discovered in 2019 that some organizations, such as the Town & Gown Players, Junior League of Athens and Historic Athens, were paying $1 a year to rent buildings owned by ACC, while others—including the East Athens Development Corp., Hancock Corridor Development Corp. and Athens Neighborhood Health Center—were paying much higher rents.
Mayor Kelly Girtz assigned the Government Operations Committee to come up with a new, more equitable policy. Under the GOC’s proposal, agencies that receive annual funding of more than $60,000 from ACC qualify for $1 rent, including ANHC, the ACC Library, Historic Athens, the county health department and Advantage Behavioral Health. Others would be charged using a formula based on the property’s market rate, the group’s income and level of ACC funding. Those groups would be eligible for an 80% discount if they can show that the services they provide benefit the community. For example, with a community benefits agreement, EADC’s annual rent for office space in the Miriam Moore Center would fall from its current level of $11,800 to $2,485. But Historic Athens’ annual rent for the old Prince Avenue firehall would rise from $1 to $2,059.
Even with the discount, some groups experienced sticker shock. The Junior League had rented the Taylor-Grady House for $1 and received an $8,000 utility subsidy in exchange for maintaining the historic house, but informed ACC it will not renew its lease after learning that annual rent could rise as high as $152,460. The Town & Gown community theater would be on the hook for $5,069 if its community benefits agreement is approved, or $25,345 if it’s not.
Town & Gown representatives told the commission at its Dec. 7 meeting that the rent increase threatens the theater’s existence, especially in conjunction with a loss of ticket revenue during the pandemic. In addition, they pointed out that W.A. Mathis built the Grady Street theater and donated it to ACC in 1968 specifically for the use of Town & Gown.
President-elect Narke Norton told the commission that he appreciates the effort to make rents more equitable, although he reiterated other members’ belief that the proposed policy is unfair to Town & Gown. The theater has undertaken equity work as well, he noted. “We have changed from white women who are wives of doctors and professors to military personnel coming to the theater to Black and brown and LGBTQ youth,” Norton said. “The theater will continue to change as we need to.”
The commission tabled the issue Dec. 7 without discussion. Link said at the Dec. 14 commission meeting that she will be talking to other commissioners about a carve-out for Town & Gown. Denson said the commission-defined option will also take into account the pandemic and “inequities amongst many of the tenants of these properties for many years.”
Parker said she supports keeping rents for EADC, HCDC and other Black-led nonprofits at $1, at least for 2022. “That would help them gain footing that they lost due to our ad hoc policy that robbed them of funds they could have put into the community,” she said.
Thornton went even further. “I don’t think anybody who uses our facilities for the public good should pay rent, period,” she said. “If they offer a service and it’s opened up to the community, I think that helps us in the long run.”
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