Saratoga County committee approves three-year office lease with Shelters of Saratoga

The Saratoga County Buildings and Grounds Committee on May 9 authorized the chair of the County Board to sign a three-year office lease with Shelters of Saratoga for a county-owned building at 96 Ballston Avenue in Saratoga Springs and to execute a separate temporary access agreement for the adjacent county-owned vacant lot.

The committee’s action, taken by motion and approved during the May meeting, allows Shelters of Saratoga to use the existing building for general administrative offices at $1,000 per month plus utilities and certain maintenance costs, with a one-time, two-year renewal option upon mutual agreement. The temporary access agreement will allow the organization to use the neighboring vacant parcel while it works on design and potential construction; that agreement ends when the county and Shelters of Saratoga enter a land lease and begin construction, or five years after execution, whichever comes first.

Steve, a staff member filling in for Chad, read the resolution and thanked the county attorney’s office for handling much of the work on the lease. “I just wanna thank the county attorney's office for doing the majority of the heavy lifting on this,” he said. He described the site and the basic lease terms before the committee voted.

Committee discussion noted that the building is an older house converted to office use and had been inspected. “We are limiting certain areas of the building from having heavy file cabinets placed down there because we were a little concerned about some of the underlying structures,” Steve said, describing inspection findings and steps the county and tenant will take to address them.

Steve also told the committee that construction equipment currently on the adjacent parcel was being staged by a contractor installing a natural gas line along Route 50 and did not indicate that Shelters of Saratoga has begun site construction. He said county staff and the organization are still finalizing plans and expect to bring the project before the appropriate Saratoga Springs land-use boards in the coming months.

The motion to authorize the chair to execute the lease and access agreement was moved and seconded and then approved by the committee. The committee did not provide a roll-call vote in the meeting record; the transcript indicates the motion carried after an oral vote.

The committee did not specify a budgetary breakdown beyond the stated monthly rent and noted that utilities and certain maintenance costs will be the tenant’s responsibility. Staff identified follow-up steps including finalizing inspection-related limitations on storage, completing the access agreement, and presenting land-use plans to city boards if and when Shelters of Saratoga pursues construction on the adjacent parcel.

The committee adjourned after the lease vote; no further business on the item was recorded.