JASPER, Tenn. – Marion County officials are preparing to sign a new lease agreement to keep Chattanooga State at the Marion County Regional Institute of Higher Education in nearby Kimball, Tennessee, for the next 10 years.
At the Marion County Commission’s January meeting, County Mayor David Jackson said Chattanooga State officials presented the contract to county leaders recently.
The contract calls for Chattanooga State to pay Marion $221,250 per year for the use of the facilities during the contract’s term.
“That’s $7.50 per square foot for both buildings,” Jackson said.
If a proposed nursing program comes to the institute through Chattanooga State in the future, he said the contract would have to be “redone at that time.”
That nursing program would be housed in a currently unfinished space at the new Commissioner’s Hall on the institute’s campus, so a revised contract would have to reflect the additional square footage being utilized.
Commissioner Don Adkins, chairman of the board’s finance committee, said the group met last week on the matter and voted to recommend accepting the a 10-year contract.
Commissioner Steven Franklin questioned the need for such a lengthy term.
“This is what the state usually does on these projects,” Jackson said.
He said an official with the Tennessee Board of Regents told him a 10-year contract is “what they like to see.”
“It’s going to be $2.2 million over the next 10 years that we’ll be collecting,” Jackson said.
Franklin also questioned the number of ways the board or Chattanooga State could opt out of the contract once it’s in effect.
“It gives about eight different items for termination [by the state], but there’s nothing in there that says we can terminate the lease,” Franklin said. “I was just wondering if we could look a five instead of 10 years.”
County Attorney Billy Gouger said the contact was made from a standard lease form that the state uses normally.
“It’s been the same form that we’ve always used,” he said. “They [the board] are probably not going to negotiate that in a different way where the county has the right to terminate and evict them, except for cause – failure to pay rent, basically.”
Chattanooga State also has the right to terminate the agreement if state legislature doesn’t appropriate the funds to pay for the lease, Gouger said.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.