Broker proposes 'team' effort

BERNE — It’s prime real estate.
But it’s been on the market through a commercial real estate broker for two years, and it hasn’t sold.
Now the broker who is listing the property has asked South Adams School Board to consider what he calls “a team approach” to the project.
South Adams has been trying to dispose of the 4.81 acre site of the former Berne Elementary School and playground since the school was demolished and an new middle/elementary school wing was added at the sight of the junior/senior high school.
State law requires school corporations to have two appraisals of any real estate they want to sell. Those two appraisals are then averaged, and the final price must be at least 90 percent of the average of the appraisals.
South Adams went through that process and received no bids. It then turned to BND Commercial of Fort Wayne in an effort to market the property.
“We felt we were extremely close,” Dave Stemen of BND told the board Tuesday night. A developer had invested about $100,000 in an effort to interest CVS in building a new store at that location, but CVS backed away from that idea about a year ago. “Needless to say we were disappointed.”
Stemen, who now has the listing on a month-by-month basis, suggested a new approach in which the school corporation would retain ownership of the land until development and construction are complete might be the key.
“To get the best price for that land may require the school system to hold that land until the development is done,” said Stemen. “Until the build-out is done.”