THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250303
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Some state agencies and colleges appear ready to defend their real estate holdings against a raid by a commission looking for surplus property that can be sold to raise money for prison construction.
The Governor's Commission on Conversion of State-Owned Property is compiling a list of land and buildings the state no longer needs. Gov. George F. Allen has asked for a report by Jan. 1.
Another commission already has reviewed the state's holdings. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission said 6,800 acres of land and 30 buildings could be declared surplus. The estimated value: $26.4 million.
Several agency heads and college presidents responding to the JLARC report said their property should not be declared surplus. For example, James Madison University President Ronald Carrier objected to including a university farm, valued at $45,100, on the list.
``In the long term, it will be a valuable piece of land for the university's programs,'' Carrier wrote in a letter to JLARC director Philip A. Leone. ``Its usage has never been developed to what I believe it could contribute to the university's educational mission.''
Similar objections came from other university officials:
George Mason University President George W. Johnson said 81 acres, worth an estimated $427,500, will be needed for expansion of the Fairfax campus.
Mary Washington College President William M. Anderson Jr. said Mary Washington should be allowed to keep 79 acres valued at more than $1.1 million, at least until the college determines the land will not be needed for expansion.
Leonard W. Sandridge, executive vice president of the University of Virginia, said the 172-acre Milton Airport has the area's only adequate police firing range, and another 19-acre tract should be kept as a buffer zone adjacent to the university's medical center.
Despite the colleges' reluctance to relinquish some property, State Council of Higher Education Director Gordon K. Davies said ``it is good and proper for the state to look at its real estate holdings and release any into the private sector that it can.''
But it also is proper, he said, for colleges to try to keep property they might need.
``They may need it to grow, or for aesthetic or environmental reasons,'' he said. ``I think those are valid reasons, and we need to weigh them against other needs of the state.''
He got no argument from Sen. Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico County, co-chairman of Allen's commission.
``No one likes to give up flexibility,'' he said. ``We're going to listen to their plans. We're going to be fair and objective.''
However, he said the state must squeeze as much benefit as it can out of its property. ``In instances where there is pent-up capital, we have an obligation to look at it,'' he said.
Allen spokesman Ken Stroupe said some surplus holdings that ``have been looked upon as some type of nest egg have become a cobweb in the corner.''
College presidents were not the only state officials pleading to keep their property. Among the others were the heads of the Center for Innovative Technology and the Department of Youth and Family Services.
JLARC listed 20 acres of CIT property in Fairfax and Loudoun counties as surplus. The tract is valued at $3.5 million.
Former Gov. Linwood Holton, who recently stepped down as president of CIT, wrote that the land was intended for development as a high-tech office park in cooperation with Fairfax and Loudoun counties. It would be unfair to the counties ``to sell the property to the highest bidder for just plain commercial development,'' he wrote.
Holton's successor, Robert G. Templin, said the state eventually could make more money by leaving the property in CIT's hands.
``Given the strategic location in the Dulles corridor, it would be our hope we could put the land to the use for which it was ultimately intended,'' he said.
Patricia L. West, director of the Department of Youth and Family Services, said the agency should keep the Bon Air Learning Center, valued at $675,000. She said the site might be needed for construction of a juvenile detention center because of the increase in youth crime.
It was crime, and Allen's proposal for combating it, that led to the review of surplus property. Allen's plan to abolish parole, approved by the General Assembly last month, calls for construction of 27 new prisons at a cost of up to $2.2 billion over the next 10 years.
Secretary of Finance Paul Timmreck said that while the sale of surplus property might finance only a small percentage of the construction program, it is important nonetheless.
``I wouldn't characterize it as a drop in the bucket,'' he said.
Every dollar that can be raised by getting rid of surplus property is one dollar less debt the state will have to take on, Timmreck said. Allen wants to issue bonds to finance the bulk of the construction program. by CNB