Tall dry grass covers most of the one-acre lot the city owns in the middle of Edgewater Village.
On a bike ride along the Albany riverfront Sunday night, I stopped at a vacant lot the city has owned since 2013.
There was nothing to see on the one-acre lot other than tall grass already dried out this early in the summer.
Albany got the BNSF railroad to hand over this property 13 years ago in return for settling a lawsuit. The city had sued the railroad company over the Water Avenue rail line.
The lot lies pretty much in the middle of the Edgewater Village residential development. A few years ago the Edgewater developers offered to buy it, but the city didn’t sell.
The property has been declared surplus. But last October, the council again postponed, indefinitely, any consideration of a possible sale.
The lot could be useful for additional housing, and part it could be used for parking, both for Edgewater Village and for the Calapooia Brewery across the railroad tracks and Water Avenue.
When I looked around the place on Sunday, I spotted a few sparse blackberry vines.
One of the vines had a single berry that looked ripe. It looked ready to eat. Alas, it was not. (hh)
See that berry in the middle? It was, sadly, not yet quite ripe.
Why does the city overpay for properties like the property on Bradalbin and 1st and yet refuses to sell properties like the ones on Jackson that VanFleet wants to put to good use and improve the neighborhood? Even though the VanFleet offer was below appraisal slightly, it’s still funds that can be used for something important, and it betters the community.
Probably hanging on to this lot to give to one of their cronies. Not subject to the mowing/maintenance standards that residents are held to. Nothing to see here!
You mean like that City Owned Lot just South of the “Cumberland Event’s Center” that the City is just waiting to give them?
Where do you get permission to dump fill dirt on City lots? I wonder where the fill dirt piled on that lot came from and what kind of storage fee it’s earning?
We by drive this area quite often too and the city has done nothing with it. No problems with traffic or other problems. It doesn’t make sense to make big messes in problem areas and then leave other areas totally out of the city’s radar that would be easier to make use of. It would be great if we could expect some better news than having to deal with some new messes they have created out of no where.
That not ripe berry cost the city $ 10,000…..ripe ones are $ 15,000….oh my
Thank you, Hasso, for always being in the mix of the processes in Albany. I have always enjoyed your writings and comments about the happenings in our town. You have always kept your finger on the pulse.