Beach buys two lots near Oceanfront, but must be patient

It sounds like the City Assessors office made a big mistake. Maybe they should have assessed the property at $6 million, then the city would be getting an even better deal. In 2016, we will see if they made a good decision or not.

Although. the beach does need to keep up with other tourist destinations, tourists spend a lot of money each year. With gas prices being what they are, maybe people from the northeast will drive to Va Beach instead of Florida, or Myrtle Beach. I don't mind tourists paying down my real estate tax to the lowest rate in the 7 cities.

Then do the math. Here's the quote from the article, "Between both properties, the city could end up collecting $300,000 in rent by 2016, Herbert said." Now let me explain that to you. Over the next eight years, the city will receive $300,000. That means $3125 a month for 96 months, or 37500 a year for the next eight years. That does NOT mean $300,000 a year. It's great that you are starting to think and attempting to do math. But in math, you have to pay attention to the terms. Now that it has been explained to you, do you still think this is a great investment? Do you see why the government shouldn't attempt to do business? Maybe you can explain it to others and if enough people get a clue, then these bunch of idiots will be voted out.

Hey this hasn't been seen on PilotOnline but is all over the national housing bubble blogs... that REIN is halting reporting of local housing statistic numbers?

Well, I guess I am advocating that - clearly none of them "get it" on this matter.

However, Reba is someone I would continue to support inspite of this last vote. I think Bill DeSteph is worthy of another term too, but clearly I disagree with his vote on this matter.

When times are hard and citizens are suffering, local governments need to focus on what it is that they are required to do, not continue spending millions of our tax dollars on non-essentail, nice-to-have "wants" - like a "Dome Site" entertainment venue to benefit oceanfront business owners and their out of town tourists.

Just do some basic math. The property nets $300,000 in rent, just for the land, each year. They paid $1.8 million for the property. In commercial real estate terms this would be a cap rate of 17%. That is almost unheard of, especially the fact that there are over 9 more years with a national client. In basic terms the property will pay for itself in just 6 years and the city. Any income after that time is profit. If the city decides to sell the property anytime after the next 6 years it would be for a total profit.

This would have to be one of the best decisions that the city council has ever made.

Reid: Second paragraph: "The City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to spend $1.8 million to buy two parcels of property across the street from the former Dome site." Are you suggesting throw ALL the bums out?

It is good to know that the city still has money that WE can use for IMPORTANT issues like public safety or a McDonalds...

Two million bucks for a half-acre of property that we can't touch for another eight years?

I wish someone would explain to these Mensa candidates that they represent the people, not the builders.

I also wish someone would warn them that we are not far from a major recession, where we'll be hard-pressed just to come up with money for essential services, much less more millions for the council's excellent adventures.

And the beat goes on.......

With all the things the citizens NEED their tax money to be used for, I'm not thinking spending 2M on a "roll of the dice" for something that will happen in 2016 is such a good idea.

Once again the Council "thumbs their noses" at the citizens and more especially the very employees they depend on every day.

Next, the Council will say something like "we just couldn't find the money" for your project" or "we just don't have the money to support your pay raise", when in fact they threw 2MIL out the window.

Clearly, this will be an election cycle where the tone will be 'VOTE THE BUMS OUT" and put new bums in.....LOL!

The real reason they are selling well below market value is that McDonalds at 21st Street is the mid beach homeless shelter. The city should have long ago worked to clean up our first enterance to the ocean front.

Well, there you have it - every city council member that voted to waste nearly $2M of precious tax funds taking more commercial property off the tax roles needs to be fired. The City Council pretends they are "tightening our belts" and then goes shopping for non-essential "amenities" to benefit oceanfront business owners. When the city is cutting services such as the $300K for the citizen's Consumer Protection Agency and they then turn around do this - it exposes their true failure to appreciate how much Beach families need tax relief. Clearly City Council is out of touch with the economic realities that are causing so many Beach families to suffer. Building a non-essential multi-million dollar "Dome Site" Entertainment Venues is not an essential government requirement. Why do we allow the taxes on our homes to be misused building more entertainment venues for the oceanfront tourists?

Hiring freeze, cut the budget, cut city employee positions, etc. . . . I thought times were tight?? It is easy to be patient with someone else’s money! They can be patient, but the voters don't have to. By 2016, they should all be voted out!!! Purchased for 1.8 mil and eventually sold for $800,000 to some developer if their past track record is any indication. These guys are unbelievable! They just can pass up an opportunity to spend our money!

VAB residents should be up in arms over this! But they won't and to top it off, the citizens will re-elect the same clowns over and over again. So I guess the citizens are getting what they deserve. Would you spend your household income on a very small piece of land that you don't really own until 2018? If that $1.8M was invested for eight years, would it bring in more than $300K? The $300K in eight years sounds great to you? That's actually less than 2% return on investment! NOT SO GOOD! This incident shows how far VAB city council is OUT of touch with reallity and the average citizen. City government should not be in any business except public support and infrastructure. Leave the property development and the ownership of business to the private sector. Quit using our hard earned dollars to fund city councils friends and family's development projects. The city government doesn't seem to have the ability to run the government, what makes them think they can use the taxpayers money for their pet projects?

They need to buy up that whole area, drive out Peabodys and the block and bring some tasteful high end entertainment to our oceanfront. There is no reason why we should be a such a dump. VB is one of the richest cities in the world per capita. We need to act like Monaco and South Beach, not the "south side". I live just off the oceanfront and its appalling that places that were ghetto in Eastern Europe, India and Russia back in the 1990s have now passed us up. Where is our pride to be the best. Furthermore, the type of tourists we attract spend only $1000 on average for a weekend where other beach downs on the Atlantic have tourists spending $10,000 per weekend. It can only lead to good to go upscale. I hope the city gets enough sense to trade the Navy planes at Oceana for the FAA and an international airport to draw wealthy Asians, Indians, Arabs and Europeans to our shores. I work as an investment banker abroad and its my biggest dream to see VB become an American Monaco. It can be done if we can grow out of our redneck mentality.