Oxford residents Tuesday will have a chance to weigh in on a proposal for the town to sell a 10-acre lot at the Woodruff Hill Industrial Park.
A town meeting on the proposed sale to Claris Corporation is set for 8 p.m. at Town Hall.
The construction company wants to blast through the rock slope and use the material for the $33 million hangar project at the Oxford Airport.
Oxford Economic Development Director Herman Schuler says the sale will benefit the town because Claris plans to make the site more suitable for development. Right now, the land is rocky ledge, which could accommodate a building of no more than 20,000 square feet, Schuler said in an e-mail.
With improvements, the land could become a flat pad that could support up to a 85,000-square-foot building, according to Schuler.
Contract
A similar proposal came before voters at a town meeting in 2008, but a contract approved by voters has since expired while Claris waited for the go-ahead to build the airport hangar from the state.
Now the town has renegotiated that contract. Tuesday’s town meeting was scheduled to allow voters to give input because of the changes to the contract.
The new agreement allows Claris to buy the lot for $350,000, 15 days after a construction contract is signed with Keystone to build 273,000 square feet of new hangars on the airport. Click here to read a past story about the proposal at the airport.
‘Giving It Away’
Not all in town are in favor of the sale at the price though.
Richard Burke, a member of the Board of Finance and a member of the Republican Town Committee, said he is against “basically giving it away under the circumstances.”
“In this matter, I also believe that Oxford is holding a Royal Straight Flush,” Burke said. “And yet the people negotiating this deal for Oxford are folding to a pair of deuces.”
Burke said Claris will save $5 to $6 million on fill for the airport project by purchasing and using material from Lot 10.
“I firmly believe in the fair and best interest of both sides that (it) is valued at $2 million. At these price I’ll throw in the lot for free,” Burke said
The contract, if approved by voters at the Town Meeting, would expire in August 2012.
… To be fair, a pair of deuces is a good hand. That’s four of a kind where I come from.
I’ll take four-of-a-kind! This is why we need the expertise of Herman Schuler, who actually understands economic development, investment and math vs the emotional personal opinion.