Capitol Complex Building 3 has new owners, a change necessary to proceed with a $28.5 million bond issue that will help pay a large portion of the $34 million cost to renovate the circa-1951 office building.
The West Virginia Board of Public Works on Wednesday approved transferring ownership of the iconic eight-story building, informally known as the DMV building, from the Department of Administration to the state's Economic Development Authority.
"Basically, the transfer to [the] EDA allows it to collect rent to pay off the bonds," Real Estate Division Deputy Director David Hildreth told the board.
Work on the major renovation project, described as the largest construction project on the Capitol grounds since completion of the Culture Center in 1976, began July 20, with an anticipated completion date of October 2016. Plans for the oft-delayed renovation have been in the works since 2007, and the building has been vacant since December 2010.
The transfer will allow the EDA to proceed with issuing $28.5 million in bonds that will cover a significant amount of the cost of the $34.28 million renovation by Paramount Builders, of St. Albans.
The 25-year bond will be paid off with rental payments from the state agencies that will move into the building in 2016, Hildreth said.
Plans call for a number of Department of Commerce agencies, including the Division of Tourism, that are now housed in leased office space in Charleston and South Charleston to move into Building 3.
Debt service on the bonds will run about $1.9 million a year, at a 3.84 percent interest rate, bringing the total cost of the bonds to roughly $47.5 million.
Also Thursday, the board:
n Approved a correction to an erroneous tax assessment on Rill's Bus Service, a tour bus company based in Westminster, Maryland.
The board approves property tax assessments for utilities operating in the state, which, as defined in state law, includes railroads and trucking and bus companies.
"For some reason, we assess bus companies as utilities, like electric and natural gas," state Property Tax Division Director Jeff Amburgey said.
For bus companies, the assessment is calculated by dividing the total value of buses in a company's fleet with the percentage of travel within West Virginia, he said. A company with a single bus valued at $100,000 that has 5 percent of its total mileage within West Virginia would have an assessment of $5,000.
Amburgey said the division miscalculated the mileage percentage for Rill's, which began operating in West Virginia in 2014, and said a $9,770 assessment actually should be $4,400.
n Approved transferring ownership of Platinum Drive, at the Eastpointe Shopping Center, in Bridgeport, from the Bridgeport Development Authority to the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
Wednesday's meeting was delayed by about 25 minutes for lack of a quorum. The board is made up of six elected officials and the state superintendent of schools and, by law, no more than three of those officials may be represented by proxies.
On Wednesday, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant and Agriculture Commissioner Walt Helmick were present, while the auditor, treasurer, attorney general and superintendent of schools were represented by staff. That prompted a scramble to find one of the missing officials, with the board eventually calling Superintendent Michael Martirano out of a state Board of Education meeting to attend the Public Works meeting.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.