County wants to sell Jeffco Health parcel now, buy Lakewood building

JEFFERSON COUNTY – The Board of County Commissioners hopes to sell the Department of Health campus sooner than later and already have their eye on a Lakewood building to house the health agency’s staff and operations.

Questions about the financial wisdom of selling the property in the current market, which real estate agents say reflects a buyer’s advantage, arose after the county applied to rezone the property from 1-R large-lot residential to Planned Development.

The change would accommodate a wide array of commercial uses, but no firm development plan accompanies the county’s application.

“We want to sell in this market because we want to buy in this market,” Commissioner Kathy Hartman told the Edge earlier this week.

Hartman said the county wants to purchase a “distressed property” in Lakewood, but would not identify the property other than to say it no longer is suitable for its current tenants. The building, however, would fit the county’s needs, she said

Hartman’s comments seem to go against the grain of comments made by Commissioner Kevin McCasky during the March 17 Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on the case.

During that hearing, and in earlier comments to the Edge, McCasky said the county is willing to wait two years or more to find the right price and combination of uses for the site.

“We want to find what works best for the long term,” McCasky said. “Whoever we sell it to and whenever we sell it, we want to see it put into production right away” after it’s sold.

Hartman also called into question McCasky’s indication that the county would shop around among would-be buyers, saying that once the county outs the property on the market, the law requires it be available to any qualified buyer with plans that fit the site’s zoning.

The Planning Commission gave the nod to a request by the County to rezone the Department of Health site at West Alameda Avenue and South Kipling Street, recommending that City Council approve the rezoning request when it hears the case April 26.

Neighbors of the site are gearing up for the hearing, concerned over a number of issues including the lack of a specific, detailed site plan regarding what could be as much as 150,000 square feet of commercial buildings on the 17-acre site. They also are concerned that the traffic “study” prepared for the rezoning case has few actual traffic counts and solid data.

They point to statements from city staff and the county’s traffic consultant that none of the traffic forecasts are based on grocery store use, even though a supermarket is a likely and allowed use under the proposal. Further, the critics say, the estimates of cut-through traffic their neighborhoods can expect, amount to little more than conjecture because no actual traffic counts were made.

The Jeffco health agency has operated at the site under special-use permits approved by the city in 1974 and 1988, but has occupied the site since the mid-60s, before Lakewood was incorporated. The current zoning carried over from a similar large-lot residential zoning category bestowed by Jeffco.

The requested change would allow the county to sell the property for commercial and retail development including one tenant with up to 85,000 square feet of commercial space and other single-tenant retail stores up the 150,000-square foot maximum. Other specified uses include gas stations, banks and financial institutions, fast food outlets, office buildings, convenience stores, and low-power telecommunications facilities.

The requested change also would allow any uses allowed in 1-C (Convenience Commercial) zoned districts except adult-oriented businesses.

The site is the only county-owned property on the sale block, but the county is looking at the increasing cost to maintain a number of properties with an eye toward consolidating some of the facilities. Money from the sale of the Kipling Street acreage will go into the county’s General Fund and could be used to meet much of that maintenance burden, McCasky said.

The county expects as much as $8 a square foot for the property, based on the county’s appraisal, McCasky said. The two health agency buildings on the property are becoming too costly to maintain and are expected be razed when the property is sold, he said.

Although consolidation could be the short-term effect of the sale, the county has long-term plans to staff satellite county buildings around the county, Hartman and McCasky said. The move, they say, would make access to county services more convenient for citizens across the 774 square-mile county.

The plan would place representatives of most, if not all, county departments in the satellite centers, McCasky said.