Ohio University recently made a smart financial decision ' one that will save $7 million. Because this happens so rarely, and it isn't often that we get the opportunity to compliment OU's fiscal responsibility, we think it deserves to be recognized. After a 10-year lease, during which OU paid more than $800,000 a year in rent and utilities, OU's Board of Trustees voted last Friday to purchase the HDL Center for $9.25 million.
OU could have chosen instead to renew the lease, which would have led to a $12,000 first-year increase in utilities, as well as a large rent increase. For more options, the university could have leased another building, moved operation to a vacant campus building, or extended the lease while renovating a campus space like the Central Classroom building or The Ridges.
But OU was ' gasp! ' thinking ahead and showing concern for fiscal responsibility. Renewing the lease would have been costly. Renovating The Ridges and the Central Classroom building would have cost between $33 million and $40 million, plus the cost of leasing the HDL Center while renovations took place. Finding a new location with a less expensive lease would have been difficult and time-consuming. The university needed the space either way, and in the long run it will make more sense to buy rather than lease. For once, it seems OU administrators did the right thing ' kudos to the Board of Trustees.
That is, if the trustees notice this editorial, which is a rather large if
considering their usual disregard of our opinion.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the executive editors.
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The decision to purchase the HDL Center was a rare display of solid OU judgment
