James City County is looking to unload a piece of property purchased a year ago to make way for the new Fire Station 1 in Toano, but first it needs to hire a real estate firm to assist with marketing and selling the property.
A request for real estate services was sent out May 29 — with a due date of June 20 — for a firm to take on the responsibility of selling the unneeded land. Coupled with the land near the fire station is a request for real estate services for a 101-acre piece of agricultural land at 130 Crescent Drive in Oakland Estates, which the county purchased to protect in 2007.
Fire Station 1 Property
In late May 2013, the county’s Board of Supervisors voted to purchase a 3.74-acre piece of residential property — and the 1880s farmhouse sitting on it — from Charles and Susan Crawford. The Crawfords refused to sell a portion of their property, which sits at 7849 Church Lane, to the county, which was needed to make way for the new Fire Station 1 parking lot.
After purchasing the home and land for $390,000, the board voted to lease it back to the Crawfords for $1,750 per month before listing the land for sale.
Come September, the house will be vacant, so the county has taken to searching for a real estate firm to assist with various aspects of selling the property. The real estate firm would be responsible for advertising, listing and assisting with the sale, developing a strategy for sale, negotiating with buyers, coordinating title and closing services, performing a market analysis and studies and handling any other services associated with the transaction.
Part of the firm’s responsibility would be to determine an appropriate sales price, but county Capital Projects Coordinator Shawn Gordon and John Horne, director of general services, are hoping to recoup at least $225,000.
According to a memo prepared for the June 10 supervisors meeting — during which the supervisors will be tasked with awarding a construction contract for the new fire station — the funds would be “generated from a portion of the expected proceeds from the sale of the residential property at 7849 Church Lane.” The money would be put into a contingency fund for the Fire Station 1 construction project.
Oakland Estates Property
Along with the request for a firm to market and sell the Church Lane property was a request for a real estate firm to determine what should be done with property at 130 Crescent Drive in Oakland Estates, located off Richmond Road near Toano.
“The board has indicated no interest in selling the property, that was simply me looking at what appeared to be a piece of property that we owned, which could be sold and have an easement placed on it and still serve the same environmental protection purpose that we got it for,” Assistant County Administrator Adam Kinsman said.
In 2007, the county spent about $1.4 million to purchase the 101-acre property from David DeBord, and paid for permanent protection from development on another 22 acres DeBord owned, in order to preserve the “rural landscape and farmland.”
A real estate firm would be tasked with determining whether the land could be sold as a single piece or in several pieces and whether a sale would be advisable.
“This is nothing more than [a request] to get a professional opinion about what, if anything, we should do with the property,” Kinsman said.
The county is not sure what the value of the land would be to a new owner.
“I’d love to get back what we have in it, but we don’t know,” Kinsman said.
A current real estate assessment of the land, which has no buildings on it and does not have water or sewer service, is $763,600. In 2007, the property — including the 22 acres now under protection — was assessed at $788,400, and DeBord purchased the land in 2003 for $495,000.
Another layer to the discussion is protection. If the board does decide to sell the land, Kinsman hopes it would be environmentally protected. At the back of the property is an area the county paid about $240,000 to remediate as part of a two-fold project to stop erosion in the Oakland Estates neighborhood.
Neither property could be sold without the supervisors holding a public hearing and voting on the sale.