By Casey Neill
A new Dandenong Civic Centre lease will allow the council to have its cake and eat it, too.
The deal for 514 square metres on level five, 225 Lonsdale Street, with RMBL Investments Limited includes three basement car parking spaces, which sparked fierce debate at the 12 September council meeting.
But some of the council-allocated spaces in the sought-after car park will now be shifted to a new parking area at nearby 144 Thomas Street, so there’ll be no net loss of spaces available to the public.
This earnt the proposal support from the special committee that was established to hear public submissions and make a recommendation to the council.
The council received 26 submissions regarding the proposal, all supporting the lease but objecting to reducing public car parking.
Councillors unanimously approved the lease at the Monday 28 November council meeting.
The council included space to grow when it built the Dandenong Civic Centre in 2012-’13.
In the short to medium term these spaces were always intended to be available for commercial leasing to provide a return to ratepayers.
But the council had difficulty leasing the office spaces due to the cost of fitting out the cold shell.
So the council fitted out both levels at a cost of $90,000 to remove that barrier.
Cr Jim Memeti said in September that RMBL was prepared to pay $700,000 over five years to use the office space and parking spots and welcomed the contribution to the council budget.
