By Dec. 1, the agency will have relocated to the second floor of the Fund building if the two agencies are able to finalize the agreement.
MPLT Board Chairman Alvaro A. Santos confirmed to Variety of their decision to vacate their office on Anatahan Drive on Capital Hill.
He told Variety, “MPLT has decided to lease an office space at the Retirement Fund building because the building it now occupies has been designated part of the Homeland Security administration on Capital Hill.”
Santos said that their current building’s proximity to the Emergency Management Office area makes it a practical move to include the adjacent MPLT office.
He also said that EMO has now become an office under Homeland Security.
As of Thursday last week, the pension agency board had approved of the MPLT renting the 2,076 sq. m. space on the second floor of the Fund building.
From the 75 cents per square foot previously proposed, the MPLT agreed to a 25-cent increase and Fund board approved of the MPLT’s renting the space from the pension agency during its board meeting last Thursday.
Fund board counsel Viola Alepuyo, who was instructed by the board to negotiate with MPLT, told the board last Thursday that she had spoken with MPLT board chairman Alvaro A. Santos who conveyed the MPLT board’s agreeing to $1 per square foot.
Fund legal counsel Carolyn Kern said they would draft the terms of the lease and provide the agency a draft for its review.
She also told the board that they would still be working out the terms with MPLT including payment of one to two months of rent in advance.
Trustee Adelina Roberto expressed her concern with the payment of utilities.
She asked the board to agree that all future tenants of the building be made to pay their own utilities.
The Fund lost its tenant, the Public School System — which occupied the second and third floors of the building — last August when it decided not to enter into a new agreement with the Fund. Its lease expired on April 30 and was given a two-month grace period by the pension agency.
PSS was paying close to $20,000 in monthly rent a month and around $10,000 in monthly utilities.
