Two of three Jasper city properties sold at auction
It didn’t matter how long the numbers marinated, not many people were biting on the three city properties being offered at auction Thursday.
After three rounds of bidding, Kerstiens Development took home the deeds to two of the properties, the 19-acre property near Lechner and Gregory lanes sold for $296,000 and the 13-acre 30th Street Park property sold for $201,000.
Bart Kerstien stated the developer plans on turning the Lechner property into single-family homes and the 30th Street location into multi-family units. He didn’t give a timeline for that development.
The remaining 10 acres that sits at the intersection of St. Charles Street and Truman Road didn’t receive a single bid and was retained by the city.
The first round of bidding began with the Lechner property but the only number coaxed from the crowd of about 40 in the Pfaffenweiller Room at the City Hall was a bid for $175,000 after Tony Brahm plied the crowd for several minutes. This was $10,000 above the starting bid of $165,000.
Then nothing happened on the St. Charles property. Bidding started at $95,000 but no one bit no matter how much Tony stirred.
Action heated up on the 30th Street Park property immediately though. Several bids pushed the starting bid of $110,000 up to $175,000.
After that, the auctioneers met with the city officials in attendance for a few moments and then returned to the box to go another round of bidding.
The Lechner Lane property didn’t budge in price and no one moved for the St. Charles tract.
The 30th Street Park price jumped another $10,000 when bidding opened back up. It stalled for a moment and Tony took some time to talk to the crowd and finally coaxed an additional $10,000 between two $5,000 bids.
They stepped down again to meet with the city officials.
When Tony returned for the third and final round of bidding, he attempted to get some movement on the Lechner property but it remained stuck at $175,000. “Folks we have not yet met the 90 percent reserve on this property,” Tony told the crowd. “The reserve on this piece of property is $296,100. If you want to bid that tonight, that would be great.”
He put it out. “Anyone interested in it at that price,” he asked and got a response. “Right there. I got $296,100.”
The bid went around but no one else moved on Kerstien’s bid and Tony closed the sale.
The St. Charles property went around again with no bids.
Then Tony started on the 30th Street Park and pushed it up to $199,000 before announcing the bidding had exceeded the 90 percent reserve and the property would be sold that night. That brought out a few more bids until it again ended with Kerstien at $201,000; about $5,000 above the reserve.
At the table finishing the purchase, Bart Kerstien said the group didn’t want to let the Lechner property go back to the city and they have to wait for it to come back for sale, so they decided to bid the reserve to take it tonight.
Originally, the Jasper Common Council decided to sell four properties; the three auctioned tonight and a 119-by-95 foot parking lot next to Headquarters at the corner of Main and Second streets. According to City Attorney Renee Kabrick, the city decided to remove that property from the auction after learning the Headquarters was considering filing for a vacation of a right-of-way and it would not be completed in time for the auction.
Officials decided to put the three properties up for sale to replenish the $1,087,795 from the Rainy Day Fund used to purchase The Parklands.
