11/21/07 - Lime Hollow Road DMV site rejected

(As published by Cortland Standard, Evan Geibel reporting)

A site on Lime Hollow Road won’t be among the possibilities for a Cortland County Department of Motor Vehicles location that will be presented Dec. 6 to the county Legislature.

The Legislature’s ad hoc space needs committee will choose between the final two possible sites at a 10 a.m. meeting.

The negotiated prices of the two sites under consideration were not released at a Tuesday morning meeting of the space needs committee but the committee did go into executive session to discuss the prices with County Administrator Scott Schrader.

Legislators first reconsidered a parcel off Lime Hollow Road in Cortlandville that had been initially tossed out as a possibility — some legislators had questioned why the property was not among the three that had been publicly disclosed as possibilities.

The MVE Homes property off Route 13 in Cortlandville had been among the final locations under consideration but it is now being sold to an undisclosed company.

The other two sites are located in the city of Cortland’s 7th Ward; one is attached to the BOCES plaza on Port Watson Street and the other is between Cleveland and River streets.

The chair of the ad hoc space needs committee, Carol Tytler (D-3rd Ward), said Tuesday that the ultimate goal is to choose one site that would be voted on by the Legislature.

The committee decided that rather than sending the final choice through the Budget and Finance and General Services committees, upon which the same legislators serve, the whole Legislature should be presented with the final choice all at once.

Schrader said if the project’s design phase could be started and completed over the winter months, construction on the final site could begin with the start of the 2008 construction season.

The 2.2-acre site between River and Cleveland streets across from Hampton Inn has an asking price of $400,000 — that site has an existing Morton-type metal building that may be of use to the county.

The second site near the south end of River Street includes part of the BOCES facility parking lot. No price has been disclosed for the site. The purchase of an additional adjacent property would be necessary to make that site viable for the county. The owner of the adjacent property said recently he would sell.