This story was corrected July 19, 2011. An explanation of the correction follows the story.

A key piece of Montgomery College’s proposed Germantown Science and Technology Park could soon become part of the school.

The Montgomery College Foundation is buying a 69,500-square-foot building near the college’s Germantown campus that the school had been leasing for the past five years. The $16 million purchase, which needs approval by the County Council, will provide flexibility in how the college uses space for planned science and technology initiatives.

The college had been leasing the Goldenrod Lane building from Royco, a commercial real estate company in Silver Spring, for more than $1 million a year. The college uses the space for faculty offices and its Center for Teaching and Learning, as well as subleasing part of it to the county’s Department of Economic Development to house a business incubator.

Under the terms of the deal, the college would repay the foundation at approximately the same annual amount that it now pays Royco. The college, in turn, would continue the 20-year lease for a portion of the building to the Department of Economic Development to continue housing the business incubator, for about half of the $1 million in annual payments to the foundation.

The college is exercising a purchase option in its five-year lease from Royco, which expires Sept. 30.

The foundation is a nonprofit organization with roughly $5 million in revenue in 2009, according to Internal Revenue Service documents. It provides financial support to the college and advocates for its interests. It is purchasing the building on behalf of Montgomery College, which will then repay the foundation over the course of three decades. The college will pay interest on the $16 million.

“The Goldenrod building allows the college to realize its academic goals and the county to realize its economic development goals,” Montgomery College spokesman Elizabeth Homan wrote in an email. “Additionally, the building is integral to the college's larger plans for the Germantown Campus, which include the construction of the Science and Technology Park.”

The college’s plans for the Germantown Science and Technology Park include 1 million square feet for technology and science company offices and laboratories.

Ownership gives the college more flexibility to use the building as it wishes in the future, Homan said.

The park is part of the Germantown Campus Development Project, which also includes the Bioscience Education and Conference Center with 127,000 square feet of labs, classrooms and other facilities — which are scheduled to open in 2014 — and the Germantown Innovation Center, a business incubator.

On July 11, the Montgomery County Council’s Education Committee recommended approving the purchase and sent the matter to the full council for consideration, following a public hearing Tuesday. The council would have to amend the fiscal 2011-2016 Capital Improvements Program to approve the sale of the building to the Montgomery College Foundation.

aujifusa@gazette.net

This story was corrected to say the college uses the space for its Center for Teaching and Learning, which was originally misnamed.