Gaithersburg nears answer on day labor center

Monday, Oct. 2, 2006

The City of Gaithersburg appears to be closer than ever to resolving the dilemma of where to establish an employment center for day laborers.

City Manager David B. Humpton announced Monday that officials are close to signing a lease for a 2,050-square-foot storefront in the Festival at Muddy Branch shopping center on Muddy Branch Road.

Elected officials are holding a special worksession to discuss the new option at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 12.

Negotiations are still ongoing with Nellis Corp. — the Rockville-based owner of the Festival — but city leaders are optimistic that it could be an ideal location and could mark the end of months of searching and controversy.

‘‘It is centrally located in the City, public transportation is readily available, and it is easily accessible by contractors and workers,” Humpton wrote in a statement. ‘‘... With public support, we are hopeful that the center could become operational before the winter season.“

The city has faced growing scrutiny in recent months for failing to identify an acceptable site for a center to serve the roughly 75 day laborers who gather in various spots across the city every morning to find work.

The often emotional debate has been complicated by the fact that many of the day laborers, mostly Latino men, are illegal immigrants.

The potential site is the former Atlantic Edge Scuba store near the shopping center’s east end. The storefront became available in recent weeks.

It is the closest the city has come to finding a site since July, when Humpton proposed a building on East Diamond Avenue in Olde Towne that was rejected by city leaders after neighboring business owners balked.

This time around, the city feels it has a better site that will be less objectionable.

‘‘We’re hoping there won’t be this large disparate group of property owners that will dispute this solution,” said Tony Tomasello, assistant city manager.

If the mayor and council are favorable to the site at the Oct. 12 work session, the county would step in to negotiate the terms of the lease.

Nellis has not laid out its asking price, Tomasello said, but ‘‘I would imagine it’s going to be in the $30-plus per foot range.”

At 2,050 square feet, that would put the rent at roughly $70,000 annually.

The news comes less than two weeks after city police began enforcing trespassing laws at a Route 355 parking lot that had for three years been the day laborers’ primary gathering spot, next to Grace United Methodist Church.