Bill Wellock – Citizen’s Voice -Published: June 20, 2015WILKES-BARRE — A decade after buying the Market Street Square complex, the Redevelopment Authority of Luzerne County is selling the property for $4.6 million less than the price it paid for the site.
A developer plans to pay $1.2 million for the Market Street Square complex three blocks from Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square. The property on the corner of Market Street and Wilkes-Barre Boulevard includes a former train station, strip mall and parking lot.
Market Square Properties Development LLC submitted a letter of intent at Tuesday’s meeting of the Redevelopment Authority of Luzerne County, Executive Director Andy Reilly said Friday. He said he couldn’t identify the partners in the company because of a confidentiality agreement between the developers and the authority.
The company plans to use the existing train station for a mix of office and retail sites, Reilly said.
The authority bought the station property and adjoining parcels from businessman Thom Greco for $5.8 million in 2006. County government and the authority have kicked around plans for the property ever since.
County commissioners approved $2 million for renovations, but when the government changed, county Manager Robert Lawton proposed a new course of action in 2012. He asked the authority to sell the five acres in the complex.
The authority solicited proposals but got no takers, until now.
An independent appraisal in 2013 from Congdon Hynes Appraisal LLC of Endwell, N.Y., put the complex’s value at about $1.9 million. Reilly said that estimate was for the “highest and best use” of the property, which would have included demolishing the dilapidated but historical train station for new construction at the corner of Market Street and Wilkes-Barre Boulevard.
Tuesday’s offer was the only proposal the authority received on the property, Reilly said. After a request for proposals turned up no offers, the authority listed the parcels with Hinerfeld Comm
ercial Realty and tried again to find a buyer. Hinerfeld recommended that the authority board take the $1.2 million offer.
“(The appraiser’s) thought was that we’d get lower offers than $1.8 million if a developer intended to keep the station and redevelop that station building,” Reilly said. “It’s on the National Historic Register, it’s an architecturally significant building. Whenever a building like that can be saved and redeveloped, I think that’s a good thing.”
The discrepancy between the 2013 appraised value and the offer from Market Square Properties Development LLC comes from the fact that the buyer will keep the train station, said Patrick Sammon, a real estate broker with Hinerfeld Commercial Real Estate. A demolition would be a one-time expense, and a developer would be able to put up a modern building, which would be cheaper than rehabbing an old structure, he said.
