After several years of sitting idle and just a few offers, the Oneida county board accepted a bid Tuesday authorizing the sale of the former WPS building near the courthouse. The original asking price was more than $500,000 in 2008. The county sold the building to Midwest Lease, LLC for $185,000.
The vote was 15-3 to sell the building.
County Land Information Director Mike Romportl said Midwest Lease owner Leo Krivikas could not attend the meeting, but told Romportl the reason for the lower asking price was the building needs work...
"....he's very concerned about the Rhinelander real estate market. he felt, in essence, this is going to be the cheap part of that building, that there's a lot more to come after this in terms of improvements. I think you guys are well aware of that from past discussions that it's going to take a lot more to get the building up and going...."
Another Rhinelander businessman had made an offer within the past few months for the property, but the county couldn't come to terms with him.
Supervisor Scott Holowinski said the original thought was to put the Department on Aging in that building, but that didn't work out. He says the county didn't lose as much money as it appears. He says the county sold WPS the land off Timber Drive for $750,000...
"...out of that tax money, we didn't use tax dollars, we bought WPS for $525,000. At this point, I don't see that we have any use for it. Ya, we're taking a loss but we're still about($450,000 to the good), and we kept those 35 or 36 (WPS) jobs..."
The building was also looked as as a potential landing spot for the county Health Department or UW-Extension, but those ideas weren't accepted.
