With Maui County paying $100,000 per month in rent for office space, the administration of Mayor Michael Victorino is proposing to buy the 6.3-acre Maui News building complex and turn it into county office space.

On Friday the Maui County Council will be asked to authorize up to $9.8 million for the purchase. On Wednesday night, the council’s Budget, Finance and Economic Development Committee held a special online hearing to gather public input on the proposal.

The county’s primary home is Kalana O Maui, a nine-story building on High Street in Wailuku. But it and other smaller structures are not large enough to hold an expanding government staff, so the county leases other spaces, including offices in the nearby One Main Plaza building, where the county has spent $21 million over the past 14 years.

The three-building Maui News complex at 100 Mahalani St. is centrally located between Wailuku and Kahului, across the street from the Maui Police Department and down the road from Maui Memorial Medical Center.

County Finance Director Scott Teruya said that if the council fails to approve the proposal, the county would continue to spend money renting office space equal to or greater than the amount paid in debt service required to pay off the parcel. After 20 years, he said, the county would own the building outright.

“We believe it’s a good investment, the mayor believes it’s a good investment,” he told the committee.

Only a handful of people testified Wednesday night, but one speaker said she was against the proposal, saying the economy is hurting right now from the coronavirus pandemic.

“I just feel now is not the right time to expand government,” Evelyn Goo said.

Action required to fund and approve the purchase was postponed by the council Feb. 5 to allow more time for public review.

If the sale goes through, the Maui News would lease the rear building from the county and continue operating at its current location.

Under the proposed sales agreement, the newspaper’s employees and printing press would be moved into a smaller space in the property’s rear building. After two years of free rent, the Maui News would pay $10,000 per month to the county as long as it remains in that location.

According to a recent story in the Maui News, the company received a letter of intent from the county to purchase the land and buildings, and the newspaper is in the process of relocating its employees to the rear building, a mix of office and warehouse space.

Transitioning to smaller facilities is a trend for many newspapers, and The Maui News is no exception, as the coronavirus and lack of tourism have hit many businesses in Hawaii, the company said in a statement.

“The newspaper plans to be an important part of the Maui community for years to come and looks to find new ways to operate and generate new revenue,” the company said. “We thank our readers and advertisers and look forward to finding new and better ways to serve and support our amazing community.”

But at least one community member, Politics On Maui blogger Deborah Caulfield Rybak, has written that she fears the move will result in a further deterioration of local journalism. Considering the owner’s track record, she said she isn’t confident the newspaper’s windfall will result in any improvement in the company’s product.

“I’ll lay you odds that the parent company won’t spend one dime of its $9.8 million sale proceeds to help resuscitate the Maui News, which is gasping,” she wrote in a recent blog post.

The 121-year-old Maui News is owned by Wheeling, W.Va.-based Ogden Newspapers, which purchased the paper in 2000. Ogden runs more than 40 small daily newspapers across the country, plus dozens of weekly newspapers, shoppers and magazines. Ogden CEO Bob Nutting, a descendant of company founder HC Ogden, also owns the Pittsburgh Pirates.