The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank commission voted Monday to accept Edgartown’s offer to buy the land bank’s old headquarters on Upper Main Street for $1.55 million.
Edgartown plans to use the property for municipal worker housing. The sale is contingent on approval from voters at town meeting.
The land bank initiated plans to offload their office at 167 and 169 Main street after purchasing a 14-acre Meetinghouse Way property last year for $9.5 million. A request-for-proposals for a municipal or nonprofit entity to buy the spot for $1.5 million drew no bids by the May deadline, but both Edgartown and Dukes County expressed interest in the property soon after.
Town administrator James Hagerty floated the idea of the purchase at a commission meeting earlier this month, presenting the idea that the building could be used for affordable housing to help ease the Island’s ongoing housing crisis.
A town meeting has yet to be scheduled for the sale, but Edgartown land bank commissioner Steve Ewing seemed confident that the transaction could secure a thumbs up from voters.
“I do think it will pass,” Mr. Ewing, who also serves as town moderator, said at Monday's meeting. “Really, it’s not for Edgartown…really what we’re doing here is we’re selling the house to Martha’s Vineyard.”
When Mr. Ewing proposed offering the town a lower price, land bank executive director James Lengyel pushed back, saying he is confident the house would fetch at least $2 million on the market, and that discounting it further might not be consistent with land bank policy.
“The land bank is offering right now, to the town, a savings of a half a million dollars,” he said.
In accepting Edgartown’s offer, the commission denied a plan for Dukes County to acquire the property as a new home for the registry of deeds. In lieu of a cash payment, the county suggested a land swap.
Dukes County commission chair Christine Todd proposed two options for a trade in a letter to the land bank, offering either the county’s Eastville beach property or 1.5 acres of land in two plots on Aero avenue in Katama.
During the meeting, land bank commissioners agreed that housing represented the more pressing concern.
“I just wish we had two offices,” said land bank commission chair Pam Goff. “[The registry] serves all the Island, and it would’ve been wonderful to do it with them as well.”
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