Topeka ? Secretary Mike Hayden defended leasing a new regional headquarters for the Department of Wildlife and Parks but acknowledged the building will be less valuable if a state park isn’t developed beside it.

Some legislators have criticized the two-year agreement, which runs through July 1, 2006. The annual rent is more than three times as high, and the state made $100,000 in improvements and doesn’t yet have a guarantee that land will be donated as promised for a new park.

Hayden acknowledged the new building, on the grounds of the former Menninger clinic in northwest Topeka, is meant to serve as a regional headquarters and as the office for the new, unnamed, 62-acre park.

Skepticism among legislators led the Joint Committee on State Building Construction to hold a hearing on the lease, even though Hayden wasn’t required to submit it to the panel for review.

“What we did was we took a trial run,” Hayden told the committee Thursday. “We have found it to be a very friendly place to be.”

Legislators have also questioned the property and its owners’ ties to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Five of the six partners in River Ridge, the company that owns the building, contributed more than $13,000 to Sebelius’ campaign fund in 2002 and 2003, according to state Governmental Ethics Commission records.

Hayden said Sebelius had no role.

“I’m the one who totally made the decision to lease this property,” Hayden said. “It’s totally immaterial to me who owns the property.”

Rep. Steve Brunk, R-Wichita, questioned last year’s move and the lease, given that the department has faced budget problems that required the state to give it $717,000 in tax revenues because user fees aren’t enough to run and maintain the 23 parks.

Rep. Bob Grant, D-Cherokee, said, “Why the hell would we have done $100,000 worth of renovations and have not gone ahead and bought it?”

Hayden said he hopes to have an agreement to buy the building by early next year but has been waiting for private developers to donate the land for the park. When the developers bought the property from the Menninger clinic, which relocated to Houston, they agreed to make such a donation, though not specifically to the state.

But the committee’s chairman, Rep. Joe Humerickhouse, R-Osage City, said the state was “vulnerable” in negotiations because of the lease.

“There’s a great deal of concern about the entire project,” he said.

The department had its regional headquarters in a 3,300-square-foot building in south-central Topeka for two decades, but Hayden said it didn’t have enough parking or space for department equipment and was half as big as it needed to be.

Private appraisers said the building is worth $600,000, with improvements. Under the lease, the state pays $92,316 a year in rent, or $184,632 over two years.

Brunk said the state has no guarantee that the land will be donated.

Legislators argued last year over naming the park after the Menninger family, which ultimately left the park designated only as “Park No. 24.”

“There’s been a lot of negative vibes about it, but I’m still optimistic,” Hayden told the committee.

The committee reviews leases lasting more than two years or involving at least 10,000 square feet.

Such agreements cover 85 percent of the state’s leased space, and some wondered if Hayden intentionally kept his lease short enough to avoid review.

But Hayden told the committee, “If it didn’t work out, we wanted to be able to get out of it.”