To seal the deal, Holt & Haugh accepted $878,933 in cash upfront in exchange for a 30-year lease on the 3,785-sf ground floor of a mixed-use building that will be topped by four apartments in the retail center of the development, which on the residential front already includes 200 homes and rowhouses and about 800 residents. When complete, the project will include 600 residential units, more than 10 acres of retail and commercial space and 130,000 sf of office space.

The deal nets the county its first free-standing library in more than three decades for well under $8 per sf, and gives Fairview Village a virtual lock on the area's public services. Mike Harrington, the county library's facilities operation, tells GlobeSt.com the sweetheart lease deal is the solution to a developer that wanted a library and a county that wanted to own its space.

The county's other option was to commit to a 10-year lease for which it would pay out a total of $730,000 or $19 per sf, albeit spread out over 120 monthly payments. The 30-year deal is the only library lease the county has made that included the option of paying up front, and it will be the county's least expensive library lease.