Real Estate Developer Buys Blackthorn Park
The city has reached an agreement to sell the remainder of Blackthorn Corporate Park to Mishawaka-based Newmark Grubb Cressy & Everett for $175,000, ending the city’s involvement in the park after more than 20 years.
The sale consists of 11 parcels and 32 total acres. It is expected to be approved by the Redevelopment Commission today.
“We’ve not had very much success (marketing the park) for around three decades,” Brian Pawlowski, acting executive director of Community Investment for the city, said Wednesday. “This will be the first time in three decades these lots will be generating taxes, be in private hands.”
"Our interest," said Ed Bradley, principal and senior vice president with Newmark Grubb, “is in essentially trying to create a win-win situation for the city and for us as private developers.”
A full-service real estate, development and management company, Newmark previously listed the corporate park on behalf of the city.
The sale requires that Newmark begin construction on a new, $1 million building at the park within 30 months or pay to the city an annual amount equal to the property tax revenue that would have been generated by the building.
"We want to see activity," said Pawlowski. "We want to see (these parcels) put into use. We didn't want to see someone take it and just hold it for a decade or two."
“We’re essentially guaranteeing something will go on the tax rolls,” Bradley said.
Bradley said a use for the building has not been identified, but it helps that the city recently rezoned parts of the park to allow for warehouses and distribution centers.
Nearby Ameriplex at Interstate 80/90 has become a magnet for such buildings in recent years, and "our hope is that a similar thing happens" with Blackthorn, Pawlowski said.
A previous request for proposals to buy and develop the parcels resulted in just one offer, not from Newmark Grubb.
“It was a different developer,” Pawlowski said. “The difference here is that Cressy has put something on the table, they have committed to building a building.”
The city developed Blackthorn Corporate Park and Golf Course in the 1990s, purchasing the land from the Airport Authority. It sold the golf course for $1.65 million in 2015.
Currently, about half the lots at the park remain empty.
"It sort of has languished as a park overall," Bradley said.
Land at the park previously was offered for $55,000 to $65,000 per acre, David Relos, an associate in the Department of Community Investment, has said,
The sale price for Newmark represents a significant savings over those rates.
Source: South Bend Tribune