Message-ID: <199719.61027.qm@web56107.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:57:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Susan Wilkinson <swilkinson2002@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Leases of Historic Properties
Craig,
The City of Eagle River owns the old train depot. Four years ago they re
novated the building with government grants and the help of some of the cit
y's civic organizations. One of the grant stipulations was that the buil
ding be leased to a non-profit. The Eagle River Historical Society opene
d a second museum at this great downtown location. Because Eagle River i
s a tourist area, the city is quite pleased that the Depot Museum has had o
ver 3,500 visitors each of the last two years (We are open six days a week
Memorial Day through the first week in Oct and Saturdays only for the rest
of October through Klondike Days in February-then closed until Memorial Day
.) The city has public rest rooms at one end of the Depot building which
they maintain. Our lease payments are nominal and were originally calcu
lated to cover utilities for our part of the building. We have encount
ered no problems regarding our (very standard) lease with the city. We
take good care of their building and the city takes care of any repair iss
ues in a better than timely manner. Both the Historical Society and the
City consider this a win/win situation.
Susan Wilkinson
--- On Mon, 6/21/10, Craig Lahm <craiglahm@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Craig Lahm <craiglahm@gmail.com>
Subject: Leases of Historic Properties
To: localhistory@listserve.uwec.edu
Date: Monday, June 21, 2010, 9:56 AM
Recently, there has been discussion about transferring ownership of a local
historic site to our city. The city is interested in owning the site IF
our historical society is interested in advising, operating, managing, ove
rseeing the site. I have been told it is common in Wisconsin for municip
alities to own a site and lease it to a local historical society for its op
eration.
We'd like to directly receive copies of lease agreements from historical so
cieties that operate under this arrangement. We'd also welcome your sugg
estions, cautions, problems, and benefits of leasing an historic site from
a municipality.
Craig Lahm Kaukauna Area Historical Society craiglahm@gmail.com www.kaukaunahistory.org