Supervisors again consider future of lot across street

WASHINGTON — The Washington County Board of Supervisors returned to a back-burner discussion on the potential sale of a vacant lot it owns at 302 West Main Street, across the street from the Washington County Courthouse.

The county has sunk $70,000 into demolition, asbestos removal and basement-filling for the small piece of land, which received a single bid of $8,000 when it was put up for sale in January.

Supervisor Marcus Fedler said he’d heard at least a little renewed interest in the property.

“The gentleman who put a bid in … wanted to know if there was going to be any possibility that it would be sold in the future, or if we’d reconsider,” he said. “I couldn’t answer the question, so I decided to talk about it, whether the plan is to sell it or the plan is not to sell it.”

Supervisors said they no longer expected to get their money’s worth for the corner property.

An evaluation from Real Estate Agent Heather Marek in February put the lot’s commercial value at $15,000-$20,000.

“The current vacant lot price in Washington is selling for around $35,000 and those are lots with double the square footage of the lot next to the courthouse,” she said in an email to the board in February. “Unfortunately, recouping your investment of $70,000 in the lot does not seem feasible at this point in time.”

Supervisor Stan Stoops said he was in no rush to sell the land.

“It’s not costing us anything to keep it,” he said. “I don’t think we have to step up and move it just because.”

The county has previously floated plans to sell the property through a real estate agent in hopes of better marketing, or drop any hope of a turnaround and convert the space into a small parking area. More recently, supervisors said they’d reach out to the Washington Economic Development Group for advice and options.

In any case, elected officials said they remained skeptical of any bid too close to January’s four-figure proposal.

“The offer we had that other time … wasn’t really even serious,” Board Chair Bob Yoder said. “Personally, if it had been my land, I would have never taken that kind of price.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com