County agrees to lease land to art center

Nueces County commissioners have agreed to a plan to lease the land occupied by a county-owned building in Port Aransas to the Art Center for the Islands.

Commissioners voted unanimously on May 20 to make the move, but more hoops must be jumped if the art center ever is to occupy the mostly-new building that is envisioned for the property.

The land at 430 N. Alister St. currently is leased to the City of Port Aransas, which in turn uses a structure there to house the Port Aransas Computer Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free public access to computers and the Internet.

Commissioners have agreed to a plan laid out by the Art Center for the Islands. The plan would mean demolishing most of the decaying structure and then rebuilding, said Dan Winship, who is a founding member of the art center and is raising funds for the organization. Winship’s wife, Karen, is president of the art center.

The art center has outgrown its facility at 323 N. Alister St., and the planned new structure would provide more space, Winship said.

So far, the art center has raised about $60,000 for construction. The art center wants to set up an arrangement in which the art center would build the exterior of a new building at a cost of $500,000, and the city would finish out the interior, Winship said.

Both the computer center and the art center would occupy the new structure, but they would have separate spaces, he said.

If plans work out, construction likely would be two or three years down the road, with the computer center relocated to a rental space for six months while the building is rebuilt, Winship said.

The city would have to agree to break its lease with the county for the project to go ahead. City Manager Michael Kovacs said he believes the city council likely will go along with that because it’s not too different from an earlier plan. In that plan, after construction is finished, the art center would have leased the land from the city, and the city would have passed the lease money along to the county.

The County Attorney’s Office has determined that, while the county could lease the land to the city, the city could not lease it to a non-governmental entity, Winship said. That’s why commissioners voted to endorse a plan for the county to lease to the art center, which then would sub-lease the land to city.

The subject of the art center and the proposed construction might be discussed at a council workshop this month, Kovacs said.

John Somers, president of the Port Aransas Computer Club, which runs the computer center, said his organization has supported plans for the building, and the commissioners’ vote on the lease arrangement hasn’t changed that. Among other things, the computer center’s current 1,200-square-foot space would increase to about 1,400 square feet, Somers said.