THE REST OF THE STORY ON CUETO BUILDING, PARKING LOT

By Juan Montoya
At last night's meeting, instead of discussing the future of Lincoln Park, Tony Martinez and his legal eagle Marc Sossi directed the commission's (and the public there to protest the gaing away of Lincoln Park) to the purchase of the parking lot besides the Cueto Building.
The Cueto Buildign was purchased form Texas Southmost College for $500,000, but lacked a parking lot.
Right next to the Cueto Building is a smaller home called the Lucena House. That's currently housing United Brownsville's Director Mike Gonzales and his staff (a secretary?).  However, without a parking lot, they – and the personnel of the Center for Civic Engagement at the Cueto Building – had to park their BMWs on the street.
Enter Da Mayor Martinez.
He directed the city staff (without consulting with the rest of the commissioners, as he is wont to do) to look for a nice piece of property where Mike and his Girl Friday could hitch their horses.
They found one next door at 1335 East Madison owned by Oscar Muñoz that had a dilapidated trailer and two duplexes that had seen better days. The land covered three lots but only the rear of the lots were used, leaving the entire front of the property unused.
The tenants – all low-income – were no problem. They were paying on a monthly basis and the city could evict them as soon as the right price was found.
Toward that end, they hired a local appraiser – Landmark Appraisal Company – to perform the required pre-purchase appraisal to determine the price. After the appraisal was performed, the value was placed at $155,000. However, the asking price for the property was about $100,000 more than that.
Not to worry.
Even though the city is prohibited from paying more than the appraised (fair market) value for a property, the city legal eagles and Martinez found way around it.
Why not rent (at $2,500 a month) for a few year (three, to be exact) until the difference ($90,000) between asking price and fair market value was paid by the city and then exercise the option to buy the land at the appraised value?
All told, between the $500,000 paid to TSC and the $250,000 that we will pay to Muñoz, it will cost the citizens of Brownsville three-quarters of a million to give Da Mayor and United Brownsville new digs and a deluxe parking lot. Ditto! Neato!
The four-year lease with the University of Texas Board of Regents the Cueto Building and the adjacent Lucena House for general office and educational started last September 1.
According to the local daily, "In lieu of paying $10 per square foot annually in rent, the terms of the lease stipulate that the tenant will make parking lot improvements to the property adjacent to the leased property. The lease also dictates that there are four one-year options included in the lease, each with a base rate of $10 per square foot annually or about $92,580 per year."
This is very enlightening because the city is currently renting the property adjacent to the Cueto and Lucena buildings at $2,500 per month for three years, which means that it will pay the renter $90,000 after those 36 months.
The rental agreement with the owner stipulates that after the three-year rental is over, the city has an option to buy at a fair market value. But now that the city wants to let UTB have the property in return for them paving the parking lot, this means that they thought the UTB parking lot paving and the rent the city pays would be a wash.
That's why the city yesterday agreed to make the purchase of the parking lot now since the UTB is ready to pave. And that's why the Stillman Love Shack was relegated to being an eyesore on the Linear Park.
As Paul Harvey used to say: "And that is the rest of the story."