Two surplus properties off of the Bill Ireland Youth Development Campus remain in state hands after an open bidding process failed to garner sufficient sale prices.

The state attempted to sell two tracts of land comprised of about 120 acres as surplus, but couldn’t divest of the lands when the single bid for the smaller of the two properties amounted to about 10 percent of the appraised value. The two tracts included 52.77 acres of unimproved property at the southeast intersection of the Highway 441 Bypass and Highway 22 and a 66.15-acre parcel of unimproved property at the intersection of North Glynn Street and West Charlton Street.

The 52.77 acre parcel of land was appraised at between $1.32 million and $1.85 million. The bid received by the State Properties Commission was about $185,000, Deputy Executive Director of the State Properties Commission Rod Bowlden said. The 66.15-acre plot of land was appraised at between $1.325 million and $1.52 million. No bids were received on that property.

Bowlden said that the properties are currently off the market following the SPC’s decline of the single bid and that the properties will be re-appraised and put back on the market at an undetermined time.

“The state is just going to wait and see,” Bowlden said. “We’ll watch the economy pan out and wait for a better time in the real estate market [to try and put the properties back up for bid].”

County Manager Joan Minton said that she’s not sure if the state’s inability to sell surplus property is a sign that the market for property is in a lul or if there’s been a change in the way the state divests itself of unneeded properties.

In late 2005, Baldwin County attempted to negotiate with the state to acquire some of the surplus property located between North Glynn Street and West Charlton Street as the site for its new jail.

“We tried to purchase state property between the YDC and the West End Public Housing Project,” Baldwin County Sheriff Bill Massee said. “We felt it was an excellent location [for the new jail] because it is close to the courthouse and close to Oconee Regional Medical Center.”

Massee said the state wanted $45,000 per acre, a price that would have propelled the cost of acquiring land to about $1.3 million dollars. The county eventually acquired 30 acres of land at a discounted rate of $10,000 an acre. At a total price of $300,000, the county paid $1 million less than it would if it had procured state land.

The county saved additional money on the project, Massee said, because the land procured at the intersection of Highway 22 and Old Monticello Road is a better physical property because it required less site preparation to locate the jail facilities there.

“We felt the state was a little unrealistic in the value they were placing on the property,” he said. “I was surprised they were not more willing to work closely with the county government to sell it at a fair price.”

County attempts to negotiate a lower price for the property were met with a strictly business response of “this is the appraised price and that is what we want for it,” Massee said.

Bowlden said that the state properties commission has the ability to accept or reject any bids and that accommodations can be made for offers that don’t necessarily meet the state’s requested price.

“Whether the properties commission will take less [than the appraised value] is up to them,” Bowlden said.

Minton said that the Fall Line Freeway Development Authority is going through the process of trying to acquire state land for a proposed joint industrial park with Wilkinson County, but have not received a price tag for any prospective land transactions.