Bidding for vacant Home Depot tops out at nearly $3 million

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Bidding on a long vacant Home Depot in the heart of Cottage Grove's main retail district ended at $2.88 million Thursday afternoon. Now, city officials say, they'll wait and see if the sale of the property is completed.

The online auction began Tuesday afternoon and ended at 3 p.m. Thursday, with bidding driving the price of the empty big box retail site up $1.2 million over the property's starting bid.

Before the auction, the site had been offered at $5 million. Its assessed value is roughly $7 million.

Identities of the parties that bid on the site -- and who placed the highest bid -- were not immediately available Thursday afternoon.

Commercial real estate broker Linda Zelm of Coldwell Banker Commercial Griffin Properties declined to discuss the property when reached Thursday. She referred questions to Home Depot public relations.

Home Depot has been desperate to unload the Cottage Grove property, vacant since its closure in mid-2008, Zelm said in an interview last month.

City officials had said they were unsure the 113,000-square-foot property would elicit any bids. Mayor Myron Bailey said Thursday he was "happy and encouraged" by the interest in the site.

The final $2.875 million bid did not reach an unknown reserve that was in place for the auction, meaning Home Depot had set a price it considered acceptable for the sale of the building. The company can still choose to accept the nearly $3 million figure and sell the property to the highest bidder.

The winning bidder has 30 days to close on the purchase of the site, according to the terms of the auction run by Irvine, Calif.,-based Real Estate Disposition LLC through its auction.com Website.

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