No Bidders for County's Franklin Building

SALEM, OR-Marion County held its public auction Friday for the Franklin Building, a six-story historic building primely located across from the Marion County Courthouse. Nobody showed up.

The minimum bid price for the 30,467-sf building was $1.275 million, just slightly over the appraised price. Open houses were held in mid-March to garner interest, says Bob McCune, the county’s facilities manager. “I expected it to get bids,” McCune tells GlobeSt.com. “I was in the building during the open houses and there were quite a few people asking pertinent questions and seeming interested.”

Curt Arthur, the associate broker with Coldwell Banker Commercial who advised the city to sell the building, says 30 days for due diligence and another 30 days to close simply wasn’t enough for someone to make an informed decision with regard to the structure. “When you have an old building in need of a lot of work, you really need to do your full due diligence to make sure it will work,” Arthur tells GlobeSt.com. “It needs to be gutted and remodeled from head to toe; somebody could easily have $3 million-$4 million into it before all was said and done.”