County To Consider Selling Property

In the market for some new property? Grand Traverse County might have just what you’re looking for.

County Administrator Tom Menzel hopes to offload several parcels of land he says are “sitting in inventory and not doing the county any good.” As part of an ongoing effort to cut costs and raise revenues to address the county’s outstanding pension debt, Menzel has been working with county planning and legal staff to conduct a complete inventory of county-owned property.

“I have been interested in looking at our asset base from two perspectives,” says Menzel. “(One is) how we can maintain (properties) with a lower cost structure. Our utilities audit is one example of that. Another…is getting a list of properties we have and determining if we can sell any for a cash infusion, and also put them back on the tax rolls for future revenue generation.”

County Deputy Director of Planning and Development Jean Derenzy says Grand Traverse County owns approximately 40 pieces of property. A majority of those parcels aren’t suitable to be placed on the market, according to Derenzy, either because of deed restrictions or because of active county use. “A lot of the (sites) are parkland or the governmental center or county operations,” she explains.

Park properties that commissioners have hypothetically discussed selling in the past, for example – such as Power Island or Twin Lakes – were gifted to the county with legal restrictions preventing their sale or development. Staff’s recent inventory, however, turned up four qualifying pieces of property the county could consider selling. Menzel says he removed one option from the list because “it was a trailhead to the TART Trails and we thought that wasn’t a good idea,” leaving three pieces of real estate that could potentially be put on the market.

The first parcel, often referred to as the “Sand Lakes Road property,” consists of 160 acres in Whitewater Township. A second, much smaller site at 2036 Cass Road offers 4.4 acres of land near East Hartman Road. The third parcel at the corner of Birmley and Keystone roads (pictured above) contains roughly three dozen acres of property.

All three sites feature undeveloped land with no known environmental or contamination challenges – parcels Menzel calls “good, clean, marketable properties that could be developed.”

“Location-wise, they’re all pretty good,” he says. “They’re not doing the community any good just sitting there. We’re trying to take an underperforming asset and turn it into a performing asset. They’re better off being developed.”

One of the sites, the Birmley and Keystone property, has been eyed by community groups for a potential recreational center. Menzel says he’s open to considering usage proposals for properties, but says his main priority is to sell the land and get it out of inventory and onto the tax rolls.

“Everything we do has to be based on pension reduction and addressing our infrastructure needs,” he says. “That money would be used to help us in our financial situation.”

Staff’s next step will be to determine values for the properties. Menzel is consulting with legal counsel now on whether the county must hire a certified appraiser, or can use a market value appraisal approach by enlisting local real estate firms. Both Menzel and Derenzy estimate that the three parcels together could fetch over $1 million for the county on the market.

“Once we get the values established, I’d like to bring that to commissioners in a package saying, ‘We’d like to list these properties, and here’s what the predicted market value is,’” says Menzel. “Then with their approval, we can go list them for sale on the open market."