Surprising decision

In a surprising 3-2 decision Monday night, Purcell’s City Council turned down bids to purchase the dilapidated former Purcell Municipal Hospital facility at 1500 N. Green Avenue.

A motion by Jay Tate and seconded by Alan Eubanks to decline the offer of $505,000 from Landmark Church Holdings, LLC was narrowly passed.

After Eubanks and Tate voted in favor of the motion, Ted Cox and Theda Engert voted against the measure. Mayor Graham Fishburn cast the deciding vote.

Eubanks said he wants city manager Sam Demel to form a committee with a 90 day window to have a plan so as to not have an empty, “building sitting there a year from now.

“We need to take a step back and do the assessment and look for what we could do with the property,” Eubanks continued. “Maybe a customer service center or a library.”

“We need more information,” Fishburn said.

Auctioneer Brent Wellings told the council the land appraised for $666,000 and that it would take an estimated $480,000 for demolition.

“You can’t piece meal this thing back together,” Cox told the council.”It would take $10 million to bring it (the building) up to code.”

Wellings told the council McClain County Commissioners looked at the property with the idea of building a courthouse but walked away. Groups from Oklahoma City and Tulsa also looked at the property but walked away.

“One group that wanted to make it a rehab center walked away calling it functionally obsolete,” Wellings said.

Other bids for the property were $200,000 from JR Bain Properties LLC and $185,000 from Curtis James Carwile.

Fishburn labeled the bidding as, “very disappointing.”

“It appraised for $1.7 million,” the mayor said. “The numbers were much lower than we expected. The sealed bid process did not meet the intent which was to bring in additional bidders.

“We want to get the community involved in the process for what we do next,” Fishburn continued. “That’s important to us and we intend to do that.”

In other business at the meeting at the Community Room of the Purcell Police Service Building the council voted 5-0 to adopt the code of the City of Purcell, the first amendment to the Southbrook residential subdivision reimbursement and accepted the bid by Pruitt Investments LLC of $101,111.21 for lots one and two of block two in the Northern Winds Heights addition.

The other bid in the process came from Cristo Es Rey Church, Inc, Oklahoma for $80,105.