CLATSOP COUNTY PUTS CARLYLE APARTMENTS UP FOR SALE

Clatsop County is placing the Carlyle apartment complex in Seaside up for sale.
The Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to place the property plus three tax lots totaling 1.3 acres containing the 26-unit facility located on Necanicum Drive up for public auction next month.
The auction will take place Jan. 19 at 10 a.m. at the Judge Guy Boyington Building, 857 Commercial St.
The property is appraised at $1,596,917. The minimum bid that will be accepted at auction is $1.5 million.
The county took ownership of the Carlyle in June following a five-year legal dispute with the former owner over a decades-old clause in the original property deed.
Since taking possession in June the county has continued to operate the complex through a property management company. But efforts to sell the facility to the Clatsop County Housing Authority in order to maintain it as an apartment complex have failed, and county officials have determined that the best course of action is to sell the property.
“We weren’t able to reach an agreement with the housing authority,” County Manager Duane Cole said. “The county is not in the housing management business, and we felt the best course of action was to turn it over to the private sector and get it back on the tax rolls.”
Carlyle tenants will be able to stay in their apartments through the sale process, and any purchaser must give the residents 30-day notice to vacate if the buyer intends to close the apartments.
The Carlyle property was one of several lots the county sold to the City of Seaside in the early 1960s for the construction of new city streets. In 1967 the city instead sold the property to a private party who built and operated a nursing home on the site. In 1993 Jesse Autry Ehler purchased the facility and converted it into a low-income apartment complex.
In 2004 the county discovered that the Carlyle property deed carried a reversionary clause requiring that the land revert to the county’s ownership if the city did not use it for the road project. The county went to court to pursue its claim, and in 2006 a judge ruled that the county could take ownership of the property provided it paid Ehler for the value of the building and other improvements.
In June 2009 the board of commissioners approved a supplementary budget appropriation of $823,183 to cover the required payment to Ehler and satisfy the legal ruling, and the county took formal possession of the property. It also hired Income Property Management Company to manage the facility and ordered a number of minor repairs.
The county originally signed a sale agreement with the Clatsop County Housing Authority in early 2007, but the purchase was put on hold after Ehler appealed the original 2006 judgment.
The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the 2006 ruling last March, but in October the housing authority informed the county it was not able to purchase the property.
If no bids meeting the minimum $1.5 million are received at the public auction next month, the county can then entertain sealed bids for the property.
The county is entitled to reimbursement for the $832,183 payment out of the sales proceeds, as well as payment for any repairs and the cost of holding the auction. Any remaining money from the sale will be distributed to other local taxing districts.
For more information on the property, contact Land Sale Specialist Sirpa Duoos at (503) 325-8522.