Direction to "strongly market" space available in the Connie Binsfeld Resource Building was given to health department director Bill Crawford last week.

The Benzie-Leelanau Health District’s board of health last week issued a directive to Crawford to work aggressively toward leasing a 4,700-square-foot area to be vacated next month by the Leelanau Peninsula High School, as well as a 1,000-square-foot space now in use by the Leelanau County Commission on Aging. The area will be vacated upon completion of the new county building under construction in Suttons Bay Township in early 2008.

State law prohibits the health department from borrowing to construct a facility. A separate entity, Leelanau sub-NHF (Northern Health Foundation), was created in the late 1990s to accomplish that. The entity owns the property for the building and the structure itself, although rent checks are made out to the Benzie/Leelanau Health Department and the mortgage is supported through revenue generated through lease agreements.

Leland Township serves as “sponsoring” governmental entity for construction of the resource center. In exchange for sponsorship, the township will become owners of the facility once the mortgage is paid off in 12 more years. In the meantime, the health department has been collecting money to support a $7,117 monthly mortgage.

Without renters to occupy the space, the health department has to come up with the portion of the mortgage payment of which it’s short. In 2006, the department’s general fund supplemented rents collected by $16,000 to $17,000 to cover the building’s mortgage.

County commissioners Mary P. Tonneberger and David (Chauncey) Shiflett, both members of the board of health, are scheduled to meet with members of the Township Board to determine whether the township “expects anything” financially in the event the Binsfeld Center and an adjacent vacant lot is sold.

“The purpose for which it was built is still there,” Crawford said. “But if we haven’t had any success in renting the space … we’ll have to revisit the potential of selling the building.”

Other occupants include the Leelanau County Family Coordinating Council, state department of human services, Great Lakes Community Mental Health, and Bay Area Transportation Authority (BATA).

By law, only 10 percent of the 16,000 square-foot facility can be occupied by “for profit” businesses.