County tables OAC purchase

Special meeting set for June 29

Posted

BROOKINGS – A purchase agreement that would have had the county move ahead with the purchase of the Outdoor Adventure Center of South Dakota has been tabled in order to give the county time to include a pair of amendments and review the amended document.

Since last summer, Brookings County has been interested in purchasing the OAC and the land it sits on with the intent that the property could then host 4-H. In August, the OAC board offered its $3 million facility to the county for the same amount as its debt: $900,000. The city then proposed giving the county $500,000 plus the land in exchange for the resource center at the Swiftel Center, meaning the final cost to the county would come to $400,000.

As outlined in the purchase agreement presented during this week’s meeting, First Bank & Trust, which now owns the assets of the OAC, would sell the county the building and all rights to the building for $900,000 and sell the OAC accounts, inventory, equipment, documents and the like for $75,000. The deadline for the payment is Oct. 1, 2017.

However, as Commissioner Lee Ann Pierce pointed out, the agreement didn’t make the purchase agreement contingent upon the county and the City of Brookings reaching an agreement with the Brookings County Resource Center at Swiftel, where 4-H is currently hosted.

This is an important condition to include “because we don’t want to end up with both properties” if the county doesn’t sell the resource center to the city, Pierce said.

And even though the purchase agreement mentioned the sale of the OAC facilities, there was no mention of the land on which it’s located.

Pierce likewise wanted it to be clear in the agreement that the OAC would remain open until the purchase takes place.

“Then the public will know that those memberships are being taken care of and they’ll still be able to use those while we’re in this transition period,” Pierce said.

The commissioners didn’t want to approve the amended document until after they had a chance to review the newly added items. They also didn’t want to wait until the next county commission meeting in three weeks to consider the agreement again.

With that in mind, they scheduled a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. June 29 to review and vote on the agreement.

Contact Eric Sandbulte at esandbulte@brookingsregister.com.