Mobile Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis opened the week with a blunt warning: if negotiations over Government Plaza’s soaring rent don’t improve, the city might pack up and leave downtown.

Speaking from his tenth-floor office at Government Plaza, the space the city has occupied since 1995, the mayor made clear the county’s newly implemented rental rates are not sustainable.

“I don’t think our city can pay $3 million a year to lease this space,” Cheriogotis said during a Monday news conference.

“We’re looking,” he added. “We are seeing what is available out there. When you run into strong-armed negotiations, sometimes you have to look at other options.”

His remarks followed a Mobile County Commission meeting earlier in the day, where commissioners lamented that the city had not been paying rent

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