Land for a new Allen County Hospital was valued at $605,000, Alan Weber, county counselor, told county commissioners at their Tuesday morning meeting.
The price tag for the 10 parcels totaling nearly 17 acres on the north side of 1400 East Street was determined by the Lawrence firm of Aul and Hatfield Appraisals, L.C.
The original price budgeted for land acquisition was $250,000, but the appraisals bumped the cost up considerably.
At the hospital trustees meeting Tuesday night, consultant Chuck Wells said the $605,000 price tag for the land “Just blows me away. In all the cities I have worked with to build hospitals I have never seen such expensive land.”
The formal appraisals came in multiple times over what the county has on its records for their value. They also come with the land “as is,” meaning taxpayers will absorb the costs of cleaning the soil of contaminants from years of smelter factories on the sites. The lots that border East Street are the most contaminated.
Hospital trustees have yet to hear back from all of the landowners as to whether they are agreeable to sell at the established price. They have until noon Tuesday to exercise their options.
Don and Ella Mae Britt, owners of two parcels north of Monroe Street, met in executive session with hospital trustees for the better part of an hour.
At the conclusion of the meeting, trustees were visibly distressed and expressed their frustration that they were no further along in securing a site for the new hospital.
Trustees fear that if landowners hold out for even higher prices, either a new site would need to be selected, pushing the timeline back so far that construction would not begin until next spring instead of this fall, or that more spent for the land would mean less would go into the building and outfitting of the hospital itself.
“We only have so much money to work with,” Wells said.
Appraisals put premium on sites
