School district mulls two offers on Lundgren Mill

The Lundgren Mill site, long considered surplus property by Sisters school officials, may soon be sold.

The school board officially put the 29.5 acres on the market with an asking price of $87,000 per acre in August 2003. Not much had been heard of it since until this month, when the district received two offers.

There are hints that more offers may be coming.

Those interested in the land have not been publicly identified, but it’s likely that they’re looking at it for commercial or industrial development. The property lies at the north end of Pine Street and for years it was occupied by a sawmill, owned by the Lundgren family. The mill closed in 1968.

The school district originally bought the property with the idea of using it for a new building that would re-start a Sisters high school program that closed in 1967 because of funding difficulties. Toward the end of the ’80s, the school board placed a bond issue on the ballot to build a new high school, presumably on the Lundgren Mill site. But voters said “No,” partly because by then the Federal Aviation Administration was saying the school site was in the flight path of the Sisters airport and was unsafe for a public facility such as a school.

Sisters voters authorized annexation of the property in 2000. And in 2002, the Oregon Court of Appeals rejected a legal challenge of a proposed rezoning and future development.

These steps finally cleared the way for putting the land on the market, zoned light industrial, which the school board did in 2003.

But now that the area market for light industrial land seems to be heating up, the current school board is proceeding with caution. Its main public reaction to the announcement of a couple of offers was to order a formal appraisal of the site, despite the fact that its earlier flyers advertised a price that would, if met, yield $2.55 million.

The board is not legally bound by its earlier price and may want to try for something higher.

Some board members may also want to defer a sale and look again at possible school uses of the site given the prospect of future community growth. If the land is sold, a board resolution adopted in March 2001 outlines how the proceeds should be used.

The first $800,000 would pay off a loan used to fix the roof and siding of the former high school, now Sisters Middle School. The rest would be used for “future repairs, maintenance and upgrades to…school facilities and equipment.”