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A final offer has been made by Fred Troelstra.
Troelstra, who is co-owner of Garden Time and the former retail site and Off-Track Betting location on Route 4 in Whitehall presented the town board with three options concerning the property at it’s Dec. 10 meeting.
“The first option would be to purchase the property for $275,000,” said Troelstra. “The second would be a lease/purchase agreement for $500 a month for one year with a sale price of $300,000 with the rent going towards the purchase. The third option would be a one year lease at $500 a month.”
Troelstra said he brought the option to the board in order to get a response as soon as possible.
“We will keep the dialog going, but that figure is as low as I am willing to go,” said Troelstra. “The first option of buying the property was made in hopes of an immediate decision.”
However, members of the board said that they would like to hear more concerning a new option that was recently brought before the town to move into part of the Skenesborough Fire Company’s building.
“I think we want to wait and see the proposal from the fire house,” said town councilman David Hollister.
“We have notified them that we are interested and are waiting from a proposal from them,” said town supervisor Vernon Scribner. “Farrell (Prefountaine) and I met up with them at their request and they are getting together the information for us.”
Troelstra also gave the town board a letter stating his position and the options he was willing to discuss concerning the property.
“I found it important to document our position,” he said.
Troelstra also commented on concerns that if the town were to move there on a lease basis and Troelstra were to sell the property, they would have to move yet again on short notice.
“It has come up on a couple of occasions about the duration of a lease,” said Troelstra. “I am sure that a lease could be written up with a time on it and if we were to sell, the new owners would know that would be part of the deal.”
Troy Shirt work
The town board also discussed the current situation with the former Troy Shirtmakers Guild Property on Mountain Street, stating that they were looking to sell the slate on the roof of the building.
“I talked with Jay Sheldrick in Fair Haven about the slate and he will come over here to see what its worth,” said town highway superintendent Louis Pratt. “He has to make sure that it is worth taking the slate off the roof.”
“There could be some value in the slate up there,” said Scribner.
The town also accepted the Request for Proposal notice drafted by town attorney Andy Kelly, looking for contractors to do the soil remediation work at the site.
“They can come to the town offices and take a look at the specs for the professional work on the site,” said Kelly about the process for contractors to submit bids. “You will then set up a time that the bids will be due and a time for evaluation of the bids.”
Kelly said that he thought HRP Associates, who did the preliminary soil work at the Troy Shirt site, would be a bidder for the work.
In order to minimize the cost of the project, the town plans to use highway and county DPW help wherever they would be able to in order to curb the spending.
“I don’t want to buy something outside that will cost us more then what we can get done in-house,” said Prefountaine.
The town currently has an employee who is trained in hazardous materials in Bob Putorti.
The town board resolved to publish the RFP for a two week period and receive bids for the work by 3 p.m. on Feb. 11, with the decision to be made by the March 11 regular board meeting.
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