FCRA to assign suggested land prices to remaining property

by Tina Alvey Dale ([email protected]) 673 views 

The Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority (FCRA) has set suggested land prices for Chaffee Crossing that will soon be available on the FCRA website for prospective buyers.

While the land prices are merely suggested prices, they will provide a starting point for negotiations, said FCRA executive director Ivy Owen.

The suggested land prices take into account parcel size and location. For instances the 166 acers in the Mahogany Industrial Property area are listed at $40,000 per acre, while the 18 acres in the Historic District Barracks Area come in at $20,000 per acre and the large office and 1.3 acres of the 2000 Area former DOE Office is listed at $225,000 per acre, according to the suggested listings spreadsheet approved by the FCRA board at its meeting Thursday (Nov. 15).

Other notable listings show the 47 acres with rail across from the FCRA offices as listed at $35,000 an acre, six acres on Massard and Planters Road (the former site of Hose of Restoration) at $40,000 an acre and 119 acres of golf course property at $25,000 an acre.

The board agreed the list of suggested land prices would be a useful tool for FCRA and the Real Estate Review Committee to see if offers made on available properties are in the correct target areas.

“This is a good starting point, and I for one am very excited to see us have this,” said Don Keesee with Bank of the Ozarks and FCRA board member. “Take the first listing (the acreage of Mahogany Industrial Property). There are 166 acres there. Obviously, if someone wants to cut that up and only wants like 20 acres of it, the price would go up exponentially. It would depend on the size of parcel they want to purchase.”

As of January, the trust had unloaded around 4,400 acres of the original 7,000, and while the remainder varies from month-to-month, FCRA estimates it has around 1,500 acres of marketable land remaining and more than 800 acres of unmarketable “wet lands.”

In an August 2017 report, Sebastian County Assessor Zach Johnson showed assessed lands in the Chaffee Crossing boundaries from 2011-2017 had a tax value of $6.916 million. That figure is 20% of the land value, which would estimate growth from the aforementioned $17.5 million (for everything) to around $34.5 million just for the land FCRA placed back on tax rolls.