The sales are pending for six vacant Dallas County Secondary Roads Department buildings, with each fetching much higher than appraised value.

The County sought to sell the storage sheds located in Bouton, Dawson, Minburn, Van Meter, Waukee, and Woodward, which were emptied when the Roads Department opened their new storage facility at their central maintenance location north of Adel. The public interest in the buildings was high, so the Board of Supervisors approved a plan for finding buyers. First, they solicited bids, which were submitted to the Hopkins and Huebner Law Firm. The facilitators then contacted the five top bidders for each property for a “bid-off” auction, with the starting price being the highest initial bid and belonging to that bidder.

The auction was held last week and the results were presented to the Supervisors at their recent meeting. Operations Director Rob Tietz pointed out that four of the six properties had five or more offers, and all but the Dawson shed had bids above the appraised value. In the end, each building sold above their appraisal, some considerably so: the Waukee building was appraised at $70,000 and sold for $90,000; Minburn’s appraisal was $3,000 and sold at $61,000; the Woodward shed fetched $30,500 after being appraised at $27,000; Van Meter’s was estimated at $13,500 and sold for $57,500; Bouton’s building was appraised at $11,000 and sold for $18,000; and though the bidding started below its appraised value of $7,000, the Dawson shed ended up selling for $11,000.

The total appraised value for the six sheds was $161,500, but the County ended up with $268,000 after the auction. The sales will still need to be made official by resolution, which will be considered at the next Board meeting. The vacant storage building in Adel is also still on the market, with the Supervisors deciding to sell it through a realtor since it had the highest perceived value.