Miami-Dade County commissioners will consider another sweetheart deal Tuesday to lease nearly four 
acres with a 38,000-square-foot building and a surface parking lot included — for $1 a year.
This time, the land grab is not for a millionaire sports team owner. It is the City of Miami Police Department, which wants to use the property at 1701 NW 30th Ave. to house its special operations units — like K9 and the bomb squad.
But at a time when the county is so financially strapped that Mayor Carlos Gimenez has recommended cuts in library hours and services and floated the layoffs of up to 700 people — including 255 county police officers — it is hard to believe that they can’t find an even slightly better option than a $1-a-year lease for a three-year term with a five year extension option.
That’s eight bucks through 2021 for a 3.8-acre site assessed at a value of $3.5 million in the Grapeland Park neighborhood near Miami International Airport. Can’t we put the property up for sale and price it at, say, $3 million to get people to bite? Even $2.5? You know — to really get the juices flowing. Sure, it would be a bargain for someone else. But it’s more than we’re getting for it now. And it could save a few police jobs.
Oh, wait, the mayor lives in Miami, doesn’t he?
Related story: Miami-Dade Police cuts won’t hurt Carlos Gimenez & sons
The resolution is sponsored by Commissioner Bruno Barreiro — who also lives in Miami, in a $500,000 house in The Roads — and will be retroactive to January 2013, 
since Miami Police have been using it anyway since 2008, after the building was vacated in 2005 by the county’s Community Action and Human Services Department. In addition to K-9 and the bomb squad, the property would house other specialized units like the Miami Police marine patrol, motorcycle unit, traffic homicide, training, SWAT/hostage negotiations, crime suppression, aviation and special events.
“This is a renewal. They’ve already been there for several years,” Barreiro said, referring to the previous six years, during which we’ve gotten $6.
And, he said, it would be difficult to put any other uses on the property, because it is surrounded by single family homes. “So you can’t put high density,” said Barreiro, who supports an increase in the library millage to keep the libraries whole (more on that later) and thinks that county police jobs can be saved through that move and by finding more efficiencies.
Barreiro said leasing the property to the Miami Police also provides that neighborhood with more “community policing” and that a higher rent would cause the city too much of a hardship.
There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”
Pages: 1 2
Cash-strapped Miami-Dade considers $1 lease on 4 acre site added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
