City moves ahead to sell city-owned, former IDOT license station that city apparently wasn't supposed to own

CEDAR RAPIDS – The City Council is moving ahead to dispose of a city-owned, former Iowa Department of Transportation driver's license station at 16th Avenue and Williams Boulevard SW that the IDOT apparently had not intended to hand over to the city.

The 1.38-acre site has been appraised at $510,000, and local commercial Realtor Scott Olson has said he expected more than one party to bid on the property.

In a memo to the City Council this week, Carol Morgan, the city's real estate disposition coordinator, states that the IDOT handed the property over to the city in 1991 as part of a handing over 16th Avenue SW, which used to be Highway 30.

Morgan goes on: "Although it may not have been the intention of the IDOT and the stat of Iowa to include this property" in the deed transfer, "it was indeed included."

She says the IDOT "discovered" in 2003 that it had included the former license station in the road transfer and "delivered the keys to the building to the city of Cedar Rapids."

Morgan say the city plans to sell the property as is. The sale is part of a city program to get surplus city property back on the tax rolls.