‘Shelter in place’

The Port Aransas City Council might soon consider a new lease arrangement for the building currently housing the Computer Center.

The idea, said Port Aransas Mayor Keith McMullin, is to make it easier for the Art Center for the Islands to raise money to build a new headquarters on the property in a few years, while keeping the computer center there in the interim.

Owned by Nueces County, the 430 N. Alister St. building is leased by the county to the city, which in turn allows the non-profit Port Aransas Computer Club to operate the computer center there. The center for years has provided

“ free public access to computers and the Internet.

“ The art center has been talking for the last few years about moving to the property where the computer center is now. In May last year, Nueces County commissioners agreed to a plan to eventually lease the land to the art center.

Commissioners agreed to a plan laid out by the art center in which the aging structure would be mostly demolished and then a mostly new building would be built.

The art center has been working for months to raise money for the project, which would give the non-profit organization more space than it currently has at its home at 323 N. Alister St.

While construction isn’t planned for a few years, the art center needs to start leasing the property soon so the group can more effectively raise money, said Dan Winship, the art center’s fundraising chairman.

People will be more likely to make donations if they see such a commitment by the county to the art center’s plans, Winship said. The art center so far has raised slightly more than $50,000, he said. It needs to raise about $500,000, he said.

The new lease might take effect this fall, Winship said.

Winship said the art center isn’t trying to evict the computer center. The new lease would include a written agreement in which the city would be allowed to continue using the building for the next few years so the computer center could keep operating there, he said.

McMullin said that kind of arrangement would suit him fine, and he believes it will suit the rest of the city council, too.

The council is expected to take up the matter at its monthly meeting in October.

While rumors have surfaced lately that the computer center might close, McMullin said there are no plans in place like that. Lyndon Holcomb, president of the computer club, said the club has no plans to shut down.

City leaders do want to eventually find the computer center a new home, but that’s going to be a few years down the road, McMullin said. The plan is to move the computer center into Bill Ellis Memorial Library, but the library by then would be an expanded facility, with room to accommodate the computer center, the mayor said.

The city is shooting for enlarging the library and improving other city facilities, some of which are cramped and decaying, by 2014, possibly through a bond issue, McMullin said. Until then, the mayor says he sees the computer center staying where it is.

“The goal,” McMullin said, “is to have them move only once.”

The city’s lease with Nueces County expires in September 2015, said Al Whitty, a board member with the computer club.

Holcomb said he and Tom Cullinan, vice president of the computer club, are OK with the plan to change the lease and move the computer center in a few years, as long as the wording in legal agreements provides protections that would allow the center to continue operating in its current home until 2014.