WELLINGTON, Fla. — The debate over the future of an executive suite building owned by the village of Wellington has some small business owners worried.
"There is no other option," Dermot Mac Mahon, a real estate and probate attorney who has an office in the Lake Wellington Professional Center, said. "If we are vacated out of here, you have nowhere to go."
A village workshop meeting on Dec. 12 looked at several options for the Phase Three work at the community center, focusing on a competition pool and possible water park.
The office building was purchased by the village in 2013 as part of a "land banking" strategy to obtain property adjacent to the community center property.
Since then, the village has leased out office space with an average rent of just over $800 a month with about 66 businesses occupying small and large offices.
But new plans for redeveloping the village's community center have some taking a long look at the future of the office space and continuing to have the village manage it.
"There is nowhere to go. The only other executive suites are off Lake Worth Road, but that's not in Wellington," Mac Mahon said. "Half my clients are Wellington residents. They like the convenience of coming here."
"I'm sad about it," Stuart Hack, an accountant who leases three offices in the building. "I think, in a sense, the tenants here have kind of become like a family."
No decisions have been made and village council members are still weighing other options, scheduling to talk it over more in January.
