Colleges might get deal on space

The city of North Charleston wants to give the South Carolina technical college system a cut-rate deal on office space the state needs to train Boeing Co. employees.

Mayor Keith Summey has agreed to rent out the five-story former city hall to the state Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education.

The 56,000-square-foot office building on Lacross Road would be leased $250,000 annually for an initial five year five-year term, parking included. That works out to about $4.46 a square foot per year, which is well below the average market rate for that area.

Similar office space nearby goes for two or three times the cost, according to local leasing surveys.

Summey said the city could have sought a higher rent.

"We probably could have asked for more, but the building was built to provide a service to the community," he said last week.

The state will use the building to recruit and train Boeing employees, according to a state document.

The aerospace giant plans to replace 650 contract employees at its existing fuselage plants in North Charleston and add 3,800 positions to staff the new assembly line it is building nearby for its 787 jet, according to a document filed with the Budget and Control Board.

If approved the lease would take effect March 1 and allow for a five-year renewal option starting in 2015 at a slightly higher rate.

Some of the space in the building would be subleased to the state Employment Security Commission, Trident Workforce Development Board and Boeing. Those other tenants will generate about half of the estimated $150,000 in annual maintenance expenses that the technical college board will be responsible for funding.

In all, about 170 state and Boeing employees will be housed in the old city hall.

"The location of all partners in one centralized location will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment and assessment efforts for new production line employees," Mandy Kibler, the technical college system's vice president for finance, said in a Jan. 25 letter to the Budget and Control Board's real estate division.

The proposed lease deal is up for approval in Columbia on Wednesday.

The city moved out of the Lacross Road building last year when it relocated its main administrative office to a new building nearby.

The Post and Courier's
Boeing Special Section.

The Boeing training program is expected to cost about $33 million during the next 15 years. The state will shoulder those expenses as part of a incentive package offered the company to attract the 787 plant to Charleston International Airport.

The factory, which will supplement the existing 787 production line near Seattle, is set to open in mid-2011.

Trident Technical College already hosts a training program for Boeing workers who piece together bits of the 787 fuselage at two existing plants in North Charleston.

John P. McDermott contributed to this report.