Cedar Rapids still looking to sell surplus city property

CEDAR RAPIDS - Selling surplus city property is harder than a taxpayer might dream.

Case in point: After a year of trying, the city now has finally sold two, seemingly attractive residential lots in the 2100 block of 20th Street NW that back up to the Ellis Golf Course.

Carol Morgan, the city's real estate disposition coordinator, says part of the holdup on the two lots was the bad economy, part the difference between dreams and reality.

A year ago, the city put the lots on the market for $72,500 each. Last fall, Morgan, a former Realtor, concluded, “It's time to get real here,” and the city reduced the lot prices to $49,950 each. Still nothing.

Then last month, the City Council agreed with Morgan to sell the lots to builder John Morris of Morris Wood Enterprises for $25,000 each after Morris convinced the city that he will need to spend $10,000 to $15,000 on each lot to bring city water and sewer to the two lots.

“I thought those two lots would be gone in a heartbeat because they are such cool lots,” Morgan says. “Where else can you buy a residential lot backing up to a golf course? ... Somebody is going to be very happy there.”

Morris says he will build a three-bedroom, 1,600-square-foot house in the $180,000 range on each of the two lots.

It was back in 2007 when the City Council first began to talk seriously about identifying and trying to sell surplus city property, and by August of 2007, a city task force came up with a list of 59 top prospects from a list of some 500 parcels, many of which were either being used or were too small or oddly shaped to sell.

At the same time, though, came the first of two political tsunamis that helped to sidetrack the surplus property program.

The first came when the City Council dared to suggest that the city explore the idea of selling a piece of one of the city's four public golf courses to try to help the city's golf operation pay to renovate the Twin Pines Golf Course and to pay off its existing construction debt. In no time, a Chicago-area developer offered to buy 20 acres of the Twin Pines course to put up a high-end commercial development, and the howls from the public began. In the end, the idea died a quiet death.

A second public outcry followed in the wake of the June 2008 flood, when a push to build replacement housing brought out proposals to build housing on a six-acre piece of city park space formerly used as a practice area at the Ellis Golf Course. That idea died, too.

The city's ongoing flood recovery has resulted in the disposition of about 25 vacant city-owned lots, which the city began purchasing in recent years to use as incentives to get developers to build new homes in the Oak Hill Neighborhood. Homes to replace those lost in the flood now sit on those former city lots.

These days, the city's Morgan continues to make her way down the city's surplus property list. Last month, the City Council agreed to try to sell 5.3 acres of undeveloped woodland off Mount Vernon Road SE. And in upcoming weeks, the city will put on the sale block what had been a former Iowa Department of Transportation license station at the corner of Williams Boulevard SW and 16th Avenue SW.

Scott Olson, a commercial Realtor, says three or four bidders likely will compete for the commercially attractive site, which he says the city now values at $510,000.

“The city has numerous surplus properties, and it should get as many as possible out for auction or bid,” says Olson. “It's a great way to generate cash for the city. It creates jobs. And it builds projects that pay property taxes.”

Morgan says next on the city list is piece of property at Memorial Drive SE and Spruce Avenue SE that she says would make a nice spot for two or three new homes. She says the city has owned the parcel for a century, and she thinks it was purchased for a smallpox hospital that was never built.