Parkersburg Urban Renewal Authority to consider online bids for two houses
Trending
PARKERSBURG -- A pair of 19th Street houses owned by the Parkersburg Urban Renewal Authority garnered nearly 260 combined bids in a recent online auction.
The authority, consisting of all nine members of Parkersburg City Council, will consider the high bids from its first online auction of property in a meeting next month.
During Tuesday's URA meeting in council chambers, City Planner Connor LaVelle said the high bid for 1714 19th St. was $17,700, placed by Parkersburg resident Deirdre Prince. Prince offered the URA $4,000 for the property last fall, but the authority declined, hoping to sell it for a higher amount.
Prince's bid was one of 69 placed for the property that came from people in not only West Virginia but also Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
The high bid of $27,100 for 1517 19th St. came from Maryland resident Alexandra Bourisquot. It was one of 190 bids, with other offers also coming from West Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Both properties were accepted as donations to the URA in November 2022.
The terms and conditions of the sale specify that all offers are subject to the review and approval of the authority, LaVelle said. This way, members can make a decision based not only on the amount offered but also whether there is "a feasible future land-use plan" to address the issues with the structure that brought it to the authority in the first place.
The URA has been meeting after the second council meeting each month, but members voted unanimously Tuesday to hold their next meeting on Feb. 13, after the first council meeting of the month. That was done after Prince requested it be moved since she could not attend the meeting on Feb. 27.
In other business Tuesday, the authority voted unanimously to acquire a former church building at 1301 Avery St. It has been before the city's Building Enforcement Agency multiple times, and the group voted in November to refer it to the URA.
Councilwoman Jesse Cottrille said she was hesitant to support the use of eminent domain without first checking to see if the property owner was willing to sell. Development Director Ryan Barber, a member of the BEA, said the owner has said he's attempted to sell it privately without success.
LaVelle said the first step of the eminent domain process is to ask if the owner is willing to accept the fair market value price. In this case, that's $25,000, minus $3,486.92 owed in city fees and $1,677.17 owed to the city in a judgment lien.
Another unanimous vote accepted an offer of $8,000 from Walker resident James E. Craddock to purchase vacant lots at 1120 and 11222 Avery St. Craddock said he plans to build two new rental dwelling units on the site.
"I think this is exciting (that) someone's actually buying two of our URA properties to build something on," Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl said.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com