The City of Otsego believes in try, try again as it tries to redevelop the CoGen property on Helen Avenue.
A previous purchase agreement with Michigan Gas Utilities had fallen through, city officials said, but they had another with Matt Double, a local excavator.
City manager Thad Beard said the project was broadly similar.
“He wants to construct a 50-foot by 80-foot building and use it for outdoor equipment storage,” Beard said.
The agreement was substantially the same, he said, just changing the purchasers’ name to USA Excavation.
“Any additional surveys he wants to do are at his cost,” Beard said.
Michigan Gas had backed out, he said, because of the complexity of dealing with a city drain and artesian well on the property.
Commissioners approved the agreement 4-0, with Commissioner Tom Gilmer excused from the meeting.
Commissioner Nick Breedveld pointed out the agreement didn’t call for $1,000 in earnest money as would be usual. Beard said that had been an oversight.
The $45,000 asking price would be mainly paid to the city’s special assessment fund as $42,000 of cleanup of industrial contamination had been done on the property when the city took possession.
Those costs came from the efforts in the 1980s to build a large coal-fired power plant called a co-generation plant on the property.
The plan was for a power generation facility that used steam from the adjoining paper mill (Mead then, Rock Tenn when it closed) and coal to produce power, which the operators would sell to Consumers Energy.
A coating mill, though, had previously occupied the site and the ground was contaminated. To encourage the arrival of the co-gen, which promised 40 jobs in Otsego, the city acquired the property and cleaned it up, leaving it ready to be redeveloped.
Contact Dan Pepper at dpepper@allegannews.com or at (269) 673-5534 or (269) 685-9571.
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