Elon’s town council has firmed up a $3 million deal that its members originally accepted four months ago in order to procure some roomier digs for its police force and its municipal offices.
During a regularly-scheduled meeting on Monday, the council formally authorized a purchase agreement with LabCorp regarding a 56,000-square foot building that the medical testing giant owns on about 5.8 acres of land at 112 Orange Drive.
This agreement, which passed by a margin of 5-to-0, solidifies a more tentative decision that the council arrived at in June to acquire this biomedical facility from LabCorp for the proposed sum of $3 million.
Located less than a half mile from Elon’s existing town hall at 104 South Williamson Avenue, this 59-year-old edifice contains roughly eight times as much space as the 7,000-square-foot structure that the town’s municipal offices presently share with Elon’s police force. The inclusion of nearly 6 acres in grounds also gives the Orange Drive property more room for expansion than the Williams Avenue site – whose dense configuration is hemmed in by two state-maintained roads and a railroad crossing.
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Under the newly-approved purchase agreement, the town will pay out a sum of $3 million to acquire LabCorp’s holdings – or about $1.1 million more than the property’s assessed tax value of $1,852,803. As a prelude, the council has agreed tender a downpayment of $30,000 as it embarks on a 90-day due diligence period ahead of the property’s actual sale.
According to Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner, the town will hire consultants to conduct a variety of environmental and structural tests during this 90-day evaluation period. The council agreed to set aside $75,000 to cover the cost of these tests – for a total presale expenditure of $105,000 when the aforementioned $30,000 downpayment is factored into the equation.
The council gave its unanimous imprimatur to the purchase agreement with LabCorp after its members convened a 43-minute closed session in the midst of Monday’s proceedings to discuss the proposed property purchase in confidence. The council had previously held a whole series of these closed-door discussions ahead of the consensus to acquire the property in June.
Yet, in the end, the significance of the town’s $3 million land deal seemed to vindicate the long hours of deliberation to many of the council’s members.
“Something very special has happened tonight in the purchase of this land from LabCorp,” councilman Randy Orwig declared after the 5-to-0 vote to approve the purchase agreement. “This is one of the biggest things that the town has done in a long time.”
“This will allow us to serve the citizens better,” concurred council member Stephanie Bourland, “and it’s something that we’ve worked really hard on.”
“I’m so happy – so happy,” added Elon’s mayor Emily Sharpe, “that we have made it through this process.”
