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Local developers interested in houses on RTC campus
Published 11:04am Tuesday, October 4, 2011After a renewed interest in the houses near the intersection of Fir Avenue and the former State Highway 297 on the Regional Treatment Center property, the Fergus Falls City Council voted to create a separate proposal application to deal with potential developers, many of them local.
The interest began coming in after the Sept. 19 meeting, when the city and Detroit Lakes developer Paul Renner could not come to a purchase agreement.
Since then, said City Attorney Rolf Nycklemoe, “There have been a number of entities expressing interest in this property.” There have been at least four different people interested in developing the 2.9 acres of land on which the six abandoned houses sit, according to RTC special advisor Kent Mattson.
Mattson did not say what the developers were interested in putting on the property, but he said they were interested in incorporating their plans with whatever eventually happens with the Kirkbride building.
“They would take these six housing properties and do something with them on an interim basis” until the Kirkbride situation is more clear, he explained.
Though some of the developers have already prepared plans to present to the council, some aldermen and city staff expressed a desire to see the applications via requests for proposals, the same application process currently underway for the larger RTC property. Under that system, all developers would provide the same types of information so the council could compare it across the board.
Mattson suggested that the request for proposal draft be completed within 30 days, with 30 more days allotted to allow people to submit, thus including all possibly interested developers. A development plan could then be selected as early as late December.
“From what I’m hearing, people are pretty well teed up to make their proposals,” Mattson said.
Tags: Regional Treatment Center
