FAYETTEVILLE — A months-long search for a home for the Fayetteville Underground has produced a new option for the local artists’ collective.

Underground artists hope to move into the GCM Building at Mountain Street and Block Avenue by June. A potential lease agreement with the owner of the GCM Building hinges upon a $60,000 special funding request to the Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission.

Artists vacated gallery and studio space in the East Square Plaza building on the downtown square in November after the building’s owners, Ted and Leslie Belden, discontinued the organization’s lease.

Underground artists and commissioners then advocated for the purchase of the Old Post Office building in the center of the square, but negotiations with that building’s owner, Ron Bumpass, have taken longer than both parties expected.

Hank Kaminsky, a longtime Fayetteville sculptor who submitted the Underground’s special funding request, called the GCM building a “temporary solution” while negotiations between Bumpass and commissioners continue.

“It’s what we can get and still be on the square,” Kaminsky said. “It would help us get our feet back on the ground.”

Kaminsky said the official name of the nonprofit organization is the Fayetteville Art Alliance, but the group is still doing business as the Fayetteville Underground.

The organization is one of 21 groups requesting money from the commission this spring. Those requests total $302,699.

Commissioners are scheduled to award funding May 14. Marilyn Heifner, commission executive director, said Friday she didn’t know how much money would be available and would have a better idea at next week’s meeting.

Commissioners awarded $182,828 in hotel, motel and restaurant tax revenue to 22 groups in November and $61,800 to 10 groups last spring.

The tax is a 2 percent levy on all local hotel stays and food purchases in Fayetteville restaurants. Half of the tax goes to the commission. The other half goes to the city’s park development fund.

Kaminsky said half the $60,000 he requested would be used to renovate space on the top floor of the GCM Building, which is owned by Gary McLendon, president of GCM Computers. The other half would go toward a six-month lease of the building, Kaminsky said.

According to McLendon, whose offices are on the lower level of the building, between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet of space has been vacant for about a year.

“It’s a win-win situation,” McLendon said of a potential lease agreement with the Underground. “I get a tenant, and they get a place.”

The top floor of the GCM building is also home to Nu Fangled Images, a video conversion and preservation company, and F-Town Longboards, a local skateboard shop.

The area that could be made into 10 to 12 artists’ studios and gallery space has housed law offices, an Internet access provider and political candidates’ campaign headquarters in the past, McLendon said.

Commissioners have traditionally given greater consideration to groups seeking seed money for first-time events or groups expected to replenish hotel, motel and restaurant taxes by bringing tourists to town.

Heifner said Friday she viewed the Underground as a tourist draw.

“Especially with Crystal Bridges (Museum of American Art),” she said. “Our experience has been that people spend four hours at Crystal Bridges and say, ‘OK, what else is there to do?’”

“One of the marketing strategies that we have is to make Fayetteville an arts destination,” Heifner added. “The Underground or Fayetteville Art Alliance would just give us one more thing to hang our hat on.”

She said the group’s special funding request doesn’t mean negotiations with Bumpass are off.

Commissioners, in April, unanimously agreed to hire the Davis, Clark, Butt, Carithers & Taylor law firm to assist in negotiations with Bumpass, whose family has owned the Old Post Office since 1977. Also, at last month’s meeting, the commission offered to pay Bumpass $730,000 for the 100-year-old building based on a March 15 appraisal by Fayetteville-based Parrish Appraisal.

“I think the ball’s in his court if he chooses to accept it,” Heifner said.

The commission’s offer is well below both the $1 million commissioners were willing to pay for the property in early January and Bumpass’ $1.5 million asking price in a counteroffer delivered to Heifner later that month.

If negotiations fail, the GCM building “may be a permanent plan for all I know,” Heifner said.