Wellington auction one year later

WELLINGTON — It was a bold move by a large property owner to sell off his holdings and, in the process, perhaps help jumpstart home and commercial construction.

But almost a year later, that hope has not yet materialized – a result of the tepid real estate market in Northern Colorado and around the nation.

Curtis Vernon, the Keller Williams broker who set up the Dec. 9 auction in Wellington, said about 100 potential buyers showed up at the Main Street Market parking lot for the event.

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It wasn’t enough.

“I think it was disappointing,” Vernon said.

Some sales did take place.

“A lot of property that people needed to be released so they could move on did move on,” he said, referring to Parker area landowner Delmer Zweygardt.

“He had a large portfolio in Wellington, and now he has a much smaller one.”

Still, one large piece of Wellington property that at first appeared to have sold at auction for $1.65 million remains in Zweygardt’s portfolio.

The sale of Main Street Market — Wellington’s only grocery store, which opened in 2007 — did not close.

The store is leased by Panhandle Cooperative Association in Scottsbluff, Neb. Rick Renteria, Panhandle’s retail manager, said the collapse of the deal put Main Street Market back to square one.

“We’re going to be still in our lease and we’ll be in there for a while,” he said, noting the company’s lease runs through 2017.

“Life goes on,” he said, “so we’ll … remain there unless something changes.”

17 building permits issued

Larry Lorentzen, Wellington’s town administrator, said the auction did not stimulate much homebuilding activity.

“Within The Knolls subdivision, some of those lots were sold to builders,” he said. “So far, there have been 17 building permits issued to build houses.”

But home-buying has been slow.

Robert Millward of Stonecrest Construction said he purchased 10 lots from a bank that bought them at the auction. Millward said he has two homes under construction “on spec” in The Knolls but has so far received little interest.

The Dec. 9 auction included 103 residential lots in The Knolls, 12 commercial lots, 185 acres of farmland, Main Street Market and 80 acres of mixed-use residential and multi-family development land just west of the market called Paradise Ranch.

Lorentzen said that as of mid-October there are “one or two” homes under construction on parcels sold at the Dec. 9 auction. Nothing has yet happened on the seven commercial parcels that were sold, he said.

“It really didn’t stir up too much,´ said Lorentzen. “It may be too soon to really tell, especially on the commercial side because it takes a while to get going on them.”

Lorentzen said the town has otherwise experienced “fairly good growth” in other areas, including a new MacDonald’s restaurant among its commercial additions this year.

Zweygardt said the auction – which ultimately resulted in about $5.4 million in sales – failed to live up to his expectations. “It is what it is,” he said.

The good news, Zweygardt said, is that since the auction he has sold “probably 60 to 70 percent” of the properties that were on the block, and that he remains optimistic about the remaining properties.

“It’ll all work out in the end,” he said.

Vernon said he’s again listing several of Zweygardt’s properties that were offered at last year’s auction.

Auction results vary

Another high-profile auction in March also had a disappointing result for Martin Lind, owner of the mixed-use Water Valley development in Windsor.

Lind put 1,500 acres of residential and commercial land in and around Windsor up for auction on March 17. The 32 parcels had an estimated market value of $95 million.

But even with more than 400 attendees and 117 registered bidders, the auction ultimately failed to come close to Lind’s expectations, realizing under $10 million in sales.

Still, Lind said after the auction he was glad he did it. “I bet we moved more property than has been moved in the last six months,” he said.

Vernon said the outcome of auctions is always a tricky proposition.

Vernon held his own auction of a commercial building in Fort Collins a few days prior to the Lind auction. The building at 6833 Antigua Drive had been languishing on the market for more than two years with virtually no interest.

But Vernon’s March 10 auction – which drew a winning bid of $434,500 – was a success, he noted.

“That property I auctioned was (sold at) a better price than any offer I’d gotten,” he said.

“I’m still very much a proponent of auctions, especially in this day and age.”