INNISFAIL – Wanting to take advantage of being listed on a global commercial and industrial real estate website, the Town of Innisfail is extending its introductory sales price timeline for the 46 acres of land it wants to sell in the new Southwest Industrial Park.
At Innisfail town council’s July 25 regular meeting, Meghan Jenkins, the town’s director of community services, asked council to consider a motion to maintain the original $160,000 price per acre at Southwest Industrial Park’s until Oct. 31.
The motion was passed unanimously by council.
The original $160,000 introductory price was approved by council on May 9. Council was told the $160,000 price on the market would remain in place until July 29 when it would be increased as servicing of the lands was scheduled to take place in the fall of 2022, with purchasers taking possession in the spring of 2023.
Jenkins told council the town had received “moderate interest” in the lands at Southwest Industrial Park, and recently sold 4.19 acres to the Innisfail Seed Cleaning Plant in the amount of $670,400.
“It is the opinion of administration that we would probably look at a price increase, and this this would be reflective of about $25,000 an acre if we went up to ($175,000) and excluded that offsite levy from the pricing,” said Jenkins. “But again, that would be brought back to council prior to October 31.”
Jenkins told council that “one of the big reasons” administration was recommending an extension to the introductory sales price point was that the new Southwest Industrial Park lands had recently been listed on LoopNet, a global commercial and industrial real estate website.
“It’s just been live for 10 days, so we're just kind of starting to get some traction there and starting to get some more inquiries, so I think another three months would be beneficial for that,” said Jenkins on July 25.
For the past year the property at the new Southwest Industrial Park - reclaimed sewage treatment plant and lagoon lands south of 37th Street - have been a key component of the town’s long-term vision of the Innisfail Economic Development Strategy & Tactical Plan, also known as Power of Place.
The property became available for sale earlier this year when the Alberta government agreed to support the town in its efforts to be released from its contractual obligation to the province and federal government to not move forward with development of the land for five years after a remediation project at the site was complete.
The remediation project was officially deemed complete in the summer of 2022 and the town originally would have been contractually obligated to wait until 2027 to develop the 46 acres of land.
