Tuesday, May 25, 2004
One dissenting councilman said the selling price was too low.
FARRELL, Pa. -- The city has been sitting on 82 acres of vacant land in nearby Hermitage for a decade, trying to find a developer or developers interested in building on the site.
Farrell never got an offer it would accept and, on Monday, city council voted to sell it to the Penn-Northwest Development Corp., Mercer County's lead nonprofit economic development agency, for $630,000.
"No one's made an offer on it lately," said City Manager LaVon Saternow, explaining why council decided to sell the land to Penn-Northwest.
Farrell got the property in a settlement coming out of the 1992 bankruptcy of the Sharon Steel Corp.
It was the second and last bankruptcy for the steelmaker in a five-year period. The company never recovered form the 1992 filing.
Sharon Steel owed Farrell $4.5 million, and the city agreed in 1994 to take 84 acres along State Line Road as partial payment on the debt in exchange for cash.
Objection to sale
The vote to sell it wasn't unanimous.
The motion passed 5-1 with Councilman Mark Petrillo absent and Councilman Robert Burich opposed.
The city let the land go "a little too cheap," Burich said, pointing out that the property was appraised two years ago at $11,000 an acre.
Penn-Northwest bought the land for just under $7,700 an acre.
Penn-Northwest plans to develop the site, but details weren't available this morning.