STAR to be auctioned again

By: 
Jason Ferguson

Come February, the state will once again try to auction the former State Treatment and Rehabilita-tion (STAR) Academy, albeit at a drastically reduced price.
The state’s School and Public Lands Commissioner, Ryan Brunner, said the S.D. Board of Appraisal met Monday morning and reduced the price of the campus to $1 million, which is $680,000 less than the previous listed price after $320,00 was subtracted from the property value when 40 acres were sold at the previous auction in September. The state has tried three times unsuccessfully to sell the campus and buildings, of which 133 acres and all the buildings, homes, etc. remain.
The auction will be Feb. 12 at 11 a.m. at the Custer County Courthouse, with the minimum bid of $1 million to attempt to find a buyer for the remaining property. If it fails to sell again, it’s likely the buildings on the site will simply be razed.
Brunner said the proposed state budget for next year includes a recommendation from the Department of Corrections for up to $1.7 million in funding to tear down the buildings on the site and return the entire campus to bare land so it can be easily sold.
Before spending state money to tear down the buildings, though, the state will have another auction at a lower price. Brunner said the state received an estimate from a contractor that a basic demolition of the largest building would be approximately $674,935.20 which would bring the value of the campus down to $1 million.
Brunner said several interested parties in buying the campus view the large three-story building, the former administrative building, as being too big to use for commercial purposes. It checks in at over 85,000 square feet.
“In addition, the fact that it was a boys-only facility limits commercial uses for multiple genders with community style showers and bathrooms,” Brunner said. “The facility also continues to cost the state for ongoing maintenance and repair. We did not take the recent vandalism into account because someone would not repair that building if they chose to demolish it.”
Just a few weeks ago vandals racked up an estimated $100,000 in damage to the administrative building, maintenance building and one of the homes on the site.
The portion that remains of the campus includes the main building, administration building, Brady Academy, the gymnasium and eight houses on 133 acres.
The campus has been auctioned twice before, with the first auction garnering no bids, while the second resulted in the ill-fated purchase by SLIC-e, which went belly up after SLIC-e Holdings bounced a $116,588 check to the state for an annual payment that was more than four months overdue. When the check bounced, the state repossessed the facility, which SLIC-e holdings was purchasing on a contract for deed.
Brunner said ideally, the facility could sell for the reduced price at the Feb. 12 auction, be put back on county tax rolls and reduce the state’s ongoing costs for maintenance without spending tax dollars to demolish the building. However, if the fourth auction fails to produce a buyer, the wrecking ball may be in the facility’s future.
“If no buyer can be found at the Feb. 12 auction, then the Department of Corrections may ask the legislature for additional flexibility in methods for selling the facility or funding for demolition,” he said.
 

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