Friday's Anoka County Union probably will carry the same story, but it is posted online today, article by Peter Bodley, with much interesting info, Star News.
Purchase price for a 1.23 acre Town Center site, $627,774 or $510,385 per acre.
At that per acre land cost, expect a state of the art facility serving several counties besides Anoka County, by contract. The article indicates officials project a $7 million building cost. Not $19 million as spent on the Ramsey City Hall. But an awful lot, for a professional specialized building. At less than half the cost Ramsey taxpayers are stuck with, for City Hall.
Would a private firm have paid as much for 1.23 acres, or chosen a different location? It's a hypothetical. Taxpayer money, spent by the County is the fact. That is quite a lot, per acre. Jim Deal must be happy in selling off that parcel from his 26 +/- acres. I think it was a lot subdivided from the Deal purchase there but might be wrong. PSD LLC is his firm, and they have a number of parcels there for sale. Are they all at half-a-million per acre? Was this site special or aspects of the situation special?
Are the old folks home people paying anything near to that much per acre? What are the other parcels being listed for there? Why half-a-million as taxpayer expense for a very non-unique lot at a troubled site? I will email this link to the Anoka County Watchdog - they may have some information.
It seems extreme.
And then the comparison of building cost, for a multi-county service site; vs the City Hall. The people doing the City Hall without a referendum sure did overbuild.