During the past several years, city leaders in Orange Beach have longed for a conference facility in the city. If an agreement can be made between the city and Solution Capital Investments, Orange Beach may indeed have its own civic center.

During a special called council meeting in Orange Beach on Tuesday, elected officials unanimously voted to pass a resolution authorizing the mayor to negotiate a purchase and sale agreement and lease for The Wharf Conference Center.

If agreed upon, SCI would sell the building, including parking areas, to the city for $1.6 million. A stipulation of the sell would be that the city would lease the facility back to the seller from a period of June 1 to July 31 for the next 20 years. The city, however, would be paid $100,000 per year, paid in 12 monthly installments of $8,333.33 for the lease of the facility.

“We are voting that we would like to do the due diligence necessary to make a decision as to whether we would like to go through with the purchase or not,” Mayor Tony Kennon explained during the meeting. “There is no obligation and no cost to move to that point.”

Kennon was firm in explaining that the purchase would not be an attempt to take taxpayer money to buy a property in an attempt to make a lot of money.

“We are looking at a civic center, that hopefully would subsidize itself through the contractual leases that go with the purchase and with possible renting of the building throughout the year. My ultimate goal would be a civic center for the city that would cost us nothing.”

Kennon said that under the agreement, the worse-case scenario would be that the city would have to pay a certain amount of money each year to maintain the facility.

“That is how I want to look at it. If we never leased it out for a single day, what would it cost the city? But I want the community to understand that this is not the City of Orange Beach trying to do another bridge deal,” said Kennon.

Although some questions were asked regarding cost of maintaining the facility, including staff and salaries, Kennon pointed out that the resolution was only for the city to enter the due diligence period.

“All we are doing today is deciding if we want to enter into the due diligence period and show a serious interest in the purchase. It is premature to start talking about or painting any picture of operations, cost, expenses or revenue until we do the due diligence.”

Although it appeared that most of the council and citizens in attendance had a positive view on the issue, some reluctance was shown on the part of councilman Brett Holk.

“I’m one of those skeptics on the whole things,” Holk said. “These are trying times, and we don’t know what the future holds. Look around at other cities and see what’s going on. I would hope they could sell it and we could get all those conventions down here and get all those tax dollars. I would like to see the government concentrate on what they need to concentrate on. I don’t mind doing due diligence, but you are going to have a hard time convincing me.”

It was suggested that a town-hall type meeting be held at the facility, allowing the public an opportunity to see what the city would be purchasing.