Buyer found for old Farmington Senior Center building

• Photo: 431 Third St.

After a long wait, there is a sold sign in the window of the old Rambling River Center.

Talk about it

The city of Farmington has one less building to take care of after Monday’s city council meeting. The Farmington City Council approved the sale of the city-owned building at 431 Third St., to Sackett Properties, LLC, of Farmington.

The former site of Rambling River Center, the building has been vacant since the senior center moved into the former city hall building in 2009. It’s been on the market for well over a year, but a proposed deal fell apart in December of 2011.

Over the summer, the Farmington City Council approved spending approximately $54,000 on a new roof and doing some asbestos abatement to the building. That work was done this fall, and once it was completed, the city listed the building with Janie Tutewohl of Keller Williams Realty.

According to city administrator David McKnight, the city received an offer after a month of showing. The offer of $90,000 came from Molly Aaron of Sackett Properties, LLC, which also owns Downtown Storage a block away from the 431 Third St. building. The purchase agreement was approved by council members at Monday’s meeting.

The agreement includes a contingency that the new owner be able to change parking alongside the building on Spruce Street to diagonal parking, at their own expense.

The city receives $85,000 from the sale, after the $5,000 fee for Tutewohl’s realtor commission. Of that amount, McKnight recommended that $54,000 of the money go back into the general fund to cover the cost of the new roof and asbestos abatement. The remaining $31,000 will be placed in the Economic Development Authority’s budget.

The city of Farmington has owned the building for more than 25 years. It was built in 1923.

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