Village board backs land sale By Kevin Boneske For The News-Chronicle After meeting in closed session Oct. 6, the Luxemburg Village Board approved the sale of two acres of land in the industrial park near the Kewaunee County Fairgrounds to Forest Construction for $14,000 an acre, said Village Engineer Don Miller. Miller said one acre of property is part of six acres of village-owned land adjacent to the fairgrounds' west edge with another acre being sold nearby. He said the development agreement calls for Forest Construction to begin building on the property in a year. Forest Construction is looking to expand from its present location on Prairie Lane in Luxemburg by building a lumber yard in the industrial park, Miller said. Under the development agreement for the two-acre site, the company must have the assessed equivalent of at least $100,000 by Jan. 1, 2005, and then have a minimum $200,000 assessed equivalent by Jan. 1, 2006. Miller said the sale also gives Forest Construction the right of first refusal if it wishes in the future to buy the remaining 5.1 acres adjacent to the fairgrounds. The county had that right prior to the sale, but declined to purchase the property after Forest Construction expressed an interest in the northern section of the land. The possible sale of the land for fairgrounds expansion had been pending for years. The village had offered to sell the county the entire six-acre piece of property for $222,668, but the proposed purchase price, which came to more than $37,000 an acre, didn't sit well with the county's Finance and Public Property Committee. The committee sought another right of first refusal for the remaining 5.1 acres, but the village board instead gave that right to Forest Construction. Miller said the county faced a higher purchase price because it wouldn't have been paying the village any property taxes, unlike a private party. The village's development criteria for the industrial park, which the board also approved Oct. 6, sets a $14,000 price "per usable acre" that the village is willing to sell land in the industrial park, "contingent upon the buyer entering into an acceptable development agreement with the village." However, with approximately $36,780 invested per usable acre upon completion of the industrial park improvements, the development criteria state the village reserves the right to raise the price up from $14,000 per acre, "if the buyer's projected development is insufficient to offset the village's costs to develop the property."