Development Authority Purchases Land to Expand Gateway Business Park

The Industrial Development Authority of Oconee County, with the support of the Board of Commissioners, has exercised the option to purchase about 29 acres of land in Bogart that will become part of the Gateway Business Park and be marketed for development.

The land is nestled between the 51-acre Gateway Park East and 57-acre Gateway Park West located on SR 316 at McNutt Creek Road.  It is owned by William and Marcia Ulm.

"Months ago we were approached by someone representing Mr. Ulm wondering if we'd be interested in the property," Chairman Rick Waller said in an interview Tuesday of last week.

At first the Authority was "lukewarm" to the idea -- "it was long before the ," he said-- but the Authority put down earnest money anyway to have the option to buy the tract to make the Gateway Business Park more appealing.

"Because it is strategically located between our two tracts that we own and because everytime we've approached someone about developing that property in the past, that's always been in issue -- in that it was separated into two different parcels with something in the middle that couldn't be accessed," Waller said.

He explained the original option required $10,000 "soft money" down.

"If we didn't want to continue the option, we just had to say that and he'd give us our earnest money back," he said.

, the Authority received a letter from Ulm's representative requesting to cancel the contract and had 30 days to decide whether to continue with the purchase or relinquish the option to buy, Waller explained.

"With all the conversations and things that have taken place in the past --that being that the tracts were divided-- we felt like it was probably a good time to exercise that option and combine everything and then market the entire acreage, so that's what we did."

On Feb. 23, the Authority held a consectutive called meeting with the Board of Commissioners in which it voted to exercise the option to purchase.  The BOC voted in support of the Authority's decision, according to the minutes.

The sale must be finalized by the end of the year or this time the $50,000 --$10,000 from months ago plus an additional $40,000 down-- will be forfeited, Waller said.

BOC Chairman Melivn Davis said last Monday the total purchase price for the Ulm property is about $1.2 million.

Also during the Feb. 23 meeting, the Authority and BOC formally agreed to the particulars of the purchase of a 260-acre portion of the Orkin tract, financing the $10.38 million through bonds at a 2.85 percent interest rate, Davis said.  The bond resolutions are attached as pdfs.