State to rent law office for $950,000

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A state lawmaker said he was concerned Wisconsin wasn’t getting the best possible deal on a new lease for the State Public Defender’s office in Racine.

The state has agreed to pay $950,000 over 10 years for a 5,298-square-foot office that will house 24 staff members. The office is in a strip plaza at 420 Sixth St.

Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, said it seemed excessive to spend $95,000 a year on rent when the state either could have searched for a cheaper office or considered buying a building.

“I’ve always taken the position that if you’re going to stay in a place for 10 years, we ought to at least look over options of possibly purchasing sites,” Risser said. “We’re committing ourselves to (nearly) $1 million on a rather small space.”

The state’s Building Commission approved the lease Wednesday, but Risser questioned whether the state had considered buying a building in lieu of signing a 10-year lease.

“Have we looked around Racine?” he said. “They have a lot of vacant buildings.”

But Peter Maternowski, deputy administrator for the Division of State Facilities, said buying a building never was an option.

“We did not actively pursue finding a building to purchase and operate on our own,” he said, “because of the changing needs over time of the public defender.”

Also, he said, the size of the Racine staff did not warrant the cost of adding a new building to the state’s portfolio.

“When we have a larger office building where we have an agency that will have the capability to actually manage a building, then we look at that seriously,” Maternowski said. “But the public defender doesn’t have the staff capabilities. They’d have to hire out all the services to operate the building.”

No one from the Public Defender’s office was immediately available to comment.

Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, who was a real-estate broker before joining the state Legislature, said the $95,000-a-year lease was fair for a 5,000-square-foot office in Racine.

“I’ll take (Schultz’s) word for it,” Risser said.