There is no shortage of Bend area real estate horror
stories with the opening chapters often set in the 2005-2008 boom period.
With a recently announced sale it’s apparent that the
City of Bend is among those faced with the reality of what happens when a
bubble bursts.
Consider the case of a leading homebuilder’s purchase of
17 acres in Sisters for $5.6 million, then completely finishing the lots for an
85 unit subdivision before having to give it back to the bank after building
only four homes.
In stepped a patient investor who purchased the unbuilt
lots for $2.4 million, leaving the bank with a major writeoff.
In a premium gated community north of Bend a California
buyer paid more than $1.1 million for a single home site. In 2012 a national
bank agreed to a short sale at $215,000. The original loan was more than
$700,000.
Entire subdivisions in east Bend were left to sprout
invasive weeds, which on the positive side may have slightly reduced the volume
of blowing dust. But now with the market gaining momentum many of these are
neighborhoods of new homes that sell before completion.
As for the City of Bend, its 2005 purchase of the 3.1
acre former Bend Bulletin newspaper site, at the northeast corner of Wall
Street and Revere Avenue, for $4.8 million appears headed to a 60% loss,
according to a report in The Bulletin.
The city had acquired the site from Taylor Brothers LLC in 2005, which had purchased it in 2002 from Brooks Resources. Western Communications, parent of The Bulletin, had traded the property to Brooks in 2002 after the newspaper's operations were relocated.
In a decision Wednesday evening, the Bend City Council
accepted an offer by Getz Properties LLC--developer of the east side Forum
Center with Costco, Barnes & Noble, Safeway and Whole Foods-- to purchase
the property for $1.9 million.
The Bulletin also reported that the city still owes $2.1 million on the property with a $700,000 principal payment and $75,000 interest due in June.
The terms give the city $50,000 in nonrefundable earnest
money but allow Getz several months of due diligence. The site is zoned to
allow 55-foot tall buildings and mixed use that could include retail, office
and residential.
At the time it was purchased the council had envisioned
the site as having the potential to extend the downtown core. Only one member
of that council is still on the current one, and a new member was quoted as
saying the city “...paid way too much money for it, for a purpose it turned out
was not feasible for that site.”
The city has also had a rough time with its 1,500 acre Juniper Ridge project, to which it had hoped to attract a university and research-oriented firms. Instead the planned OSU-Cascades 4-Year campus will be built on a 56 acre site on Bend's west side.(See posts below)
The history of the city's attempt to sell the former Bulletin newspaper site
Date
|
Time
|
New Status
|
Old Status
|
New Price
|
Old Price
|
Selling Date
|
DOM
|
Change Type
|
|
03/06/14
|
11:59:59 pm
|
Expired
|
Active
|
2,278,406
|
2,278,406
|
|
1530
|
Status
|
|
03/07/13
|
11:34:04 am
|
Active
|
Expired
|
2,278,406
|
2,278,406
|
|
1166
|
Status
|
|
02/14/13
|
11:59:59 pm
|
Expired
|
Active
|
2,278,406
|
2,278,406
|
|
1166
|
Status
|
|
10/01/12
|
10:58:25 am
|
Active
|
Expired
|
2,278,406
|
2,278,406
|
|
1030
|
Status
|
|
08/14/12
|
11:59:59 pm
|
Expired
|
Active
|
2,278,406
|
2,278,406
|
|
1030
|
Status
|
|
06/29/12
|
3:25:27 pm
|
Active
|
Active
|
2,278,406
|
3,500,000
|
|
984
|
Price
|
|
09/09/11
|
3:31:37 pm
|
Active
|
Expired
|
3,500,000
|
3,500,000
|
|
690
|
Status
|
|
08/14/11
|
11:59:59 pm
|
Expired
|
Active
|
3,500,000
|
3,500,000
|
|
690
|
Status
|
|
08/27/10
|
5:58:07 pm
|
Active
|
Expired
|
3,500,000
|
3,900,000
|
|
338
|
Price/Status
|
|
08/14/10
|
11:59:59 pm
|
Expired
|
Active
|
3,900,000
|
3,900,000
|
|
338
|
Status
|
|
09/14/09
|
4:06:08 pm
|
Active
|
|
3,900,000
|
0
|
|
0
|
New
|
|
