CASPER, Wyo. — At half the appraised value, the Casper City Council has rejected a rare bid for city land in the northwest corner of Robertson Road and Trevett Lane.
The City of Casper has offered the 9 acres for sale numerous times over the past decade with no previous offers.
A March advertisement resulted in one bid from the Sheridan-based Fairgrounds Plaza Inc. Its $536,174 offer was about half the $1.04 million 2022 appraised value. In the purchase offer, Stephen Grimshaw, company president, proposed to develop 60-plus twin-home lots.
At a Wednesday budget work session, councilors agreed the half-million-dollar offer was not sufficient.
“I cannot justify selling this property, for I will never vote for selling a piece of property for half of its value,” Mayor Bruce Knell said. “I can’t get behind this. We don’t need that half-million that bad.”
Councilor Lisa Engebretsen said houses are selling at higher values than ever before, with none staying on the market.
“The land has some value,” she said. “This is basically for him [Grimshaw] to offer the land lots at premium price, so he’s just got more money in his pocket. So it just doesn’t fly.”
Over the past 10 years, the city has offered the property, zoned for planned unit development, for sale about eight times. No bids were submitted in the past offerings even though the city has indicated a willingness to entertain a rezone of the property upon accepting a bid offer, according to a city staff memo.
Fairgrounds Plaza’s proposed two-bedroom, two-bath 1,200-square-foot homes with attached garages are similar to ones the developer built along Fairgrounds Road, according to a city staff memo. The homes would be marketed for sale to the public on the open market.
Fairgrounds Plaza’s offer proposed rezoning the property to general business to allow for a configuration similar to Fairgrounds Estates at Casper Street.
See details about the potential sale of city-owned property at Robertson Road–Trevett Lane here:
