[Source: Emily Gersema, The Arizona Republic]
Phoenix officials are about to begin working on a 60-year lease agreement for the University of Arizona to build and open an Arizona Cancer Center downtown.
The City Council on Wednesday directed City Manager David Cavazos to start writing the lease agreement.
The future site of the center is at Fillmore and Seventh streets.
The lot is part of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, which is home to various research organizations, such as Translational Genomics Research Institute and the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix.
According to a city staff report, Phoenix will lease the property on the northwestern corner of Fillmore and Seventh streets to the Arizona Board of Regents for $45 per square foot over 60 years.
The annual payment would be about $50,932 per year, providing a total of $3 million to the city for the duration of the lease.
However, the Arizona Cancer Center would not have to pay rent for the first 10 years. The city proposes to wait and recapture those deferred rent payments in the final 20 years of the lease.
After the lease expired, the city would give the land to the Board of Regents.
The board, which oversees the three state universities, is expected sometime early next year to give UA approval to build the new cancer-research center.
The Arizona Cancer Center is a UA research institution based in Tucson.
Officials plan to build and open the second center in the next few years.
Preliminary plans include building a six-story, 250,000-square-foot building.
The center would work in cooperation with the UA Medical School in Phoenix and Valley hospitals.
It is expected to employ up to 600 people.
The Phoenix Biomedical Campus covers 28 acres downtown.
City staff is working with the Board of Regents on an intergovernmental agreement that would enable the campus to expand beyond that.
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