Chelsea Council discusses commercial property tool
The Chelsea City Council heard a presentation on an online commercial real estate tool at its Dec. 1 meeting.
During pre-council, Shelley Shores discussed Xceligent, a provider of verified commercial real estate information. Shores is Xceligent’s director of client services and sales for the Birmingham market, which covers five counties.
Xceligent provides an inventory of commercial property, including buildings for lease and sale, as well as information about those properties — sales comparisons, tenant information, historical trends on rates and occupancy and market analytics.
When Mayor Earl Niven introduced Shores, he said the tool could be used to identify available commercial properties in the city.
“It will pull only the commercial availabilities that are within the city of Chelsea,” Shores said. “And that’s something that could be posted to your website, you guys really don’t have to do the legwork. We’re the ones calling the brokers every 30 days.”
The City of Chelsea, Shores said, could embed information from Xceligent on its website. The embedded information could be limited to just the city limits or expanded slightly outside those parameters in order to show properties that could affect the Chelsea area.
The map-based tool can also be limited through different search parameters, including lease rate, available square footage, lot size, etc.
Xceligent costs $250 a month in addition to a $250 start-up fee. Shores said there is also a one-year contract that automatically renews with a 60-day cancellation notice. Niven said the council will discuss the option, and council members can provide him with feedback on the product.
“We’ll discuss this, and you can feed me some of your comments between now and the next council meeting,” Niven said. “Then we’ll decide, and if we can get it worked out, the first of the year would be a good time to start.”
Also during pre-council, Niven discussed the Chelsea Community Center. He said the center has between 75 and 80 visitors a day, and he is glad to see it getting so much use.
“I think it’s going great,” Niven said. “There’s so much excitement with people coming in. ... And it’s going to pick up, especially in the winter time with the weather.”
A sand volleyball court was recently installed behind the center, and it is open for general use. Niven also mentioned the potential of initiating a fee for the community center. He said there would be a $100 yearly fee per family for residents and a $150 yearly fee for non-residents. Senior citizens, however, would not have a fee because of the grants the city received to help build the center.
“That’s going to be accepted with no problem whatsoever,” Niven said.
Several groups have also started or plan to start renting out rooms at the community center, Niven said, including a karate class and Chelsea basketball.
Changes to community center policies or procedures were only discussion points at the meeting, and Niven said they would discuss possibilities further at future meetings.
In other news, the city council also:
- Authorized a name change on a liquor license. The Kangaroo Express on U.S. 280 is now Circle K, and the council unanimously approved to change the business name on the liquor license to allow retail beer and table wine sales.
- Accepted property from Liberty Baptist Church. The half-acre lot, which merges with the parking lot at the baseball fields, was donated by the church. The property is at the corner of Liberty Road and Highway 47.
- Approved a resolution to pay the city’s bills.