County fails in bid to buy empty dollar store for shop
Staff writer
County commissioners’ plan to purchase an empty retail store in Peabody to store road and bridge equipment failed Oct. 29.
The county was outbid for the former Family Dollar / Dollar Tree store in an online auction.
The building sold for $183,500 plus a $20,000 sales fee. The county was prepared to spend only $140,000.
Buying the store site would have been instead of building a new road and bridge shop / emergency medical services station.
Before meeting behind closed doors to consider buying the store site, commissions had met with proposed construction company NF Construction to discuss scaling back and phasing in construction plans.
Afterward, commissioners voted 3-2 to authorize Commissioner Mike Beneke to bid up to $140,000 for the Family Dollar site.
Chairman Jonah Gehring and commissioner Clarke Dirks were opposed.
Dirks said he was opposed to the idea because of the likely cost of converting the retail building to the county’s use.
“We can build a whole new building for less than it would take,” Dirks said. “If we had an engineer on staff who could have said how much money to renovate it, that would be different, but we don’t have that luxury.”
Dirks said he hoped the buyer, which auction firm IImarketplace.com has declined to identify, would put the building to use as a store so it will increase employment and remain on tax rolls.
The county is now expected to return to its initial plan to build a new facility, Dirks said.
Commissioners hope to have a storage facility ready for road and bridge before winter.
“We’re trying to scale down on the building we were going to build anyway,” Dirks said.
He said he saw no point in building an ambulance station at this moment because the ambulance service does not have staff for a Peabody station.
Marion’s former Family Dollar / Dollar Tree building will be sold at auction Dec. 8 to 10.