Troy Field hits the market

Property in downtown Bend for sale for $2.62 million

By Joseph Ditzler / The Bulletin / @josefditzler

Troy Field, the 0.8-acre playing field on NW Bond Street and one of the last pieces of ground left undeveloped in downtown Bend, is officially for sale.

Fratzke Commercial Real Estate listed the parcel, which belongs to Bend-La Pine Schools, at $2.62 million. Although zoned for limited commercial use, it comes overlaid with a public facilities designation, meaning it was meant as a site for some public use. That designation can be removed or incorporated into a future use by a new owner, said Brian Fratzke, whose firm is the school district’s real estate broker.

Eight public entities had the first chance to bid on the property: the city of Bend, Deschutes County, Bend Park & Recreation District, High Desert Education Service District, Deschutes Public Library, Central Oregon Community College, Oregon State University-Cascades and Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council.

“We have to give these folks two weeks … and they all came back and said, ‘Thanks, but we don’t want to buy it,’” Fratzke said Wednesday.

The firm priced the field based on comparable sales between 2004 and 2007, Fratzke said. For example, a 0.23-acre parking lot, about 11,000 square feet, at 527 NW Franklin Ave., adjacent to McMenamins Old St. Francis School, sold for $95 a square foot in August 2006, he said. Troy Field, about 35,000 square feet, is priced at about $75 a square foot.

The Bend-La Pine school board agreed in October to designate the lot south of McMenamins Old St. Francis School as surplus property, the first step in listing it for sale. The money from the sale could fund construction of another elementary school, board members have said. Deschutes County assessed the property’s market value at $1.2 million. By comparison, the city earlier this year agreed to sell a 3.2-acre property at Wall Street and Olney Avenue for $1.9 million.

Opponents of the sale urged that the Troy Field property remain a place for lacrosse, soccer and general play. In the past, it’s been a baseball field and, in wintertime from the 1920s to the 1950s, an ice skating rink. Its name derives from the Troy Laundry, which lay east of the field until destroyed by fire sometime after 1989, according to The Bulletin archives.

As property in a limited commercial, or CL, zone, the field may accommodate housing, retail shops and offices, with height restrictions, or open space, such as a park.

The school district fielded calls from several interested parties after its decision to sell the property, said Fratzke, who said he could not identify those callers.

Along with Troy Field, the school district also put up for sale 1.64 acres zoned for medium-density residential use on NE Full Moon Drive across from Ensworth Elementary School. Fratzke Commercial Real Estate lists that property at $285,000.