One of Alanna’s and Art’s gripes about the sale of the Central property is that no realtor has appraised it in ten years. A few things have happened since 2006 when it was last appraised during a time of soaring real estate prices reflecting a housing bubble. We have been offered $14.2 million for the property. What was its value estimated in 2006? I have just been given the appraisal. Without a standing building on it the land was appraised at $8 million dollars. Bear in mind that we would have to subtract from this value the costs of demolition of Central High School. Our Facilities Manager suggested, in an off the cuff guestimate, that it would cost $1.2 million for to demolish the Building. CORRECTION; IN A POWER POINT PRESENTATION ON MARCH 31ST THE COST OF DEMOLITION WAS PUT AT BETWEEN 1 AND 2 MILLION DOLLARS. That means that in the in the days before the housing bust the value of the land minus the demolitions would have been $6 TO $7 million dollars. Could we still sell it for that much? We need some advice.
We have just been offered over twice what the land value of Central is and we have turned that offer down. That alone justifies the meeting at Old Central that I hope to talk Alanna and Art into calling next Monday night at 6:30 in the second floor board room of Old Central. We hope to have a realtor there to give us some perspective.
And by the way. All that nonsense about the New Central being worth $30 million to ISD 709 ten years ago is tosh. The Red Planners decided to sell the building to finance the Red Plan because it wasn’t where our students were. As for its being worth $60 million to build anew for the Duluth Public School Academy….Dream on. They will get between $20 million and $22 million from state taxpayers. Its a public school not a for profit operation. It will only spend what is available to it to build or refurbish a public school for its high school students.
There will be much more to say about the value of the Central property as time goes on.
