Lutton, president of Charles Reinhart Realtors, is part of a group building a new west-side office for the company. Approved by planning commission in February, it will go up on the site of the old Sunoco station on W. Stadium Blvd., which has sat idle since the station closed several years ago.

But if Lutton’s group is building the office, what are they leasing? The property was purchased in 2015 by Victory Lane Quick Oil Change founder Derrick Oxender. Rather than redevelop it himself, Oxender advertised it as a land lease. The Lutton group and any successors will own the new building–but only for ninety-nine years. At the end of the lease, they’ll surrender it to Oxender’s heirs. “Both of my sons work with the company,” says Oxender, who views the lease as a long-term investment for “future generations.”

A land lease, he points out, “gives the [land] owner a commercial building without having to build.” The landowner “doesn’t get as much monthly income for this type of lease but doesn’t have the outlay for the building and infrastructure.” The advantage to builders is they “don’t have the price of land on top of the building.”

For the building owner, the earliest years of the lease are the most advantageous. “It is a kick-the-can-down-the-road situation,” says Lutton. “Eventually, a land lease is problematic relative to the value of the building. It is conceivable, at the end of a lease, the owner could knock the building down.”

Unlike Oxender, though, Lutton’s not concerned about the far end of the lease. “Do the math,” he says. “It isn’t going to be our problem. We will get a lot of utility out of the building.” Whatever happens ninety-nine years from now “would be for Oxender’s future heirs and future owners of the building to work out.”

Bela Sipos, Reinhart Commercial Realtor and project manager, says Reinhart and Capital Title Insurance will occupy the building’s second floor. The ground floor will be leased. Sipos says the contractor “can start moving dirt after the final site plan approval” by city council, expected this month. He hopes to complete the $4 million project by late this year or early 2018.

Oxender also bought Gourmet Garden next door and will add part of the restaurant’s expansive rear parking lot to the office site. He says his next move will be to redevelop the restaurant property–but it’s too early to say just how that will play out.