Museum Group Withdraws Request For Lease Agreement

The Children's Museum of Cheyenne Board of Directors has withdrawn it's request for a lease agreement for city property in the area commonly referred to as "the hole".

The issue had been scheduled to go before the city council on Monday night. The museum group already owns most of the downtown property, with the city owning 22 feet, or roughly 1/4. At Monday's meeting of the City Council Finance Committee a number of concerns were raised about the proposed lease, even though that committee voted to recommend approval.

Non-voting committee chair Jim Brown said one issue was the provision in the agreement that would allow the museum to purchase the city-owned property for $1 if funding for a proposed "core building" could not be found. Brown questioned whether such a transaction would be legal.

Mayor Rick Kaysen on Friday said the plan now is to consider other ways of allowing the project to move forward. He says one possibility would be a development agreement between the city and the museum,

Kaysen says one advantage of that is that the State Land and Investment Board has historically been willing to award state funding when such agreements are in place.