Business First - April 18, 1997, By Rachael Kamuf
THP Development Co.’s $4.7 million bid was the highest in an unusual two-tiered auction to sell Waller Environmental School on Dixie Highway.
The retail developer will build a shopping center there, if approval for rezoning to commercial use is forthcoming. Plans won’t be available until this summer, but Benton Seay, a THP project developer, said the concept “Will be in character with our other developments.”
Construction can’t begin until next year, when Waller relocates.
THP owns Gardens at Hurstbourne, Taylorhurst and Shelbyville Road Plaza.
Seay said contacts have been made with potential tenants, “But there is no one we can discuss yet.”
THP was one of five contenders at the April 11 auction, said Auctioneer Harold Helm of Re/Max Commercial Brokers, Inc. The other bidders were Plaza Center Inc., owner of adjacent Dixie Mane; CRD Inc.; and NTS Corp., all of Louisville; and NLP Ltd. Of Cincinnati.
The sale was a two-step process that began with interested developers submitting proposals to the Jefferson Count Board of Education in March. School officials rated the seven plans they received according to land price, use and likelihood of a zoning change.
Helm said the offers made for the property in the original proposals ranged from $1.1 million to $4.5 million.
Lewis Hammond, real estate manager for Jefferson County schools, said one bid was rejected because the price was too low. Another developer, Ronald Froom of Ventura, FL, declined to take part in the live auction.
The five participants drove up the price to $4.7 million, which was $1.2 million more than the appraised value.
Surplus school property normally is sold in a conventional auction. The system’s top real estate administrators, Hammond and Rank Collesana, said the extra step was taken in the case because Waller’s location made it more valuable because of its development potential.
Waller, which has 115 students with emotional and behavioral problems, will continue to operate in the one-story building through the 1997-98 school year. Students will then be transferred to what is now Williams Middle School on Rockford Lane.
Williams is to be replaced with a new school at Cane Run Road and Lees Lane in 1998.