Rocky Mountain News Gets New Lease

Beginning in 2005, DNA would pay the city $150,000 a month to lease the building on the site earmarked for the proposed county jail and courts. City officials agreed to forgo rent payments in 2004 to keep the DNA in the building until the city determines whether to build the proposed justice center on the site. The justice center will include a jail and court rooms.

The city feared that the DNA this spring would exercise a 60-day lease termination clause under its old lease and move its operations to another Downtown building. "The DNA was going to start making lease payments in April," Brown tells GlobeSt.com. "But with the proposed amendment, the first payment would be in January 2005."

But it's a good deal for the city, although it is not getting its first payment until next year, he says. "For us, the benefit is that we get a guaranteed revenue stream," Brown tells GlobeSt.com. "The DNA could have waked with 60 days notice, but now they have to stay there and have to maintain the building."

The DNA is responsible for the entire upkeep of the building, such as water, sewer and electricity, he explains. The new lease runs until the end of 2006, he says, but the DNA has an option to leave in August, if it gives prior notice.

The city bought the building at 100 Gene Amole Way for $16 million. Both the DNA's plans to move into a new building and the city's plan to have a vote on the justice center have been delayed. The new agreement, however, should give the DNA the ability to move into a new building it would build at Colfax and Broadway, a few blocks from the Rocky.