Just one bid for Auglaize Acres

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WAPAKONETA — The Auglaize County commissioners received just one valid bid for the Auglaize Acres county home when they met to open bids, Dec. 5, and at least one of commissioners feels the bid is way too low.

County commissioners had signed a resolution, Aug. 24, to accept bids for the property and its furnishings from buyers who would continue to operate the facility as a nursing home.

The original bid deadline was Oct 5. Site visits had taken place Sept. 21.

In October, two letters of intent were received electronically. Neither was in the format required for valid bids, and they were both rejected.

“We went through a rebid process,” Commissioner John N. Bergman told the Sidney Daily News, Friday, Dec. 8.

Exactly two months from the first bid deadline, the commissioners met to unseal new bids. There was just one, although a second arrived by FedEx an hour past the deadline and was sent back unopened.

The single bid came from Hillstone Healthcare, a Lewis Center-based operator of nursing homes throughout Ohio. The bid was for $1,365,000. The commissioners are taking it under advisement.

“I sure wasn’t expecting one at this level. I’m disappointed,” Bergman said.

The county has retained Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services Inc., based in Chicago but with a broker in Columbus, to handle the sale. The contract calls for the firm to be paid 3 percent if the acquisition price is not more than $4,500,000 and 4 percent if it exceeds that amount.

About 50 percent of Ohio’s 88 counties operate nursing homes and Auglaize is not the only one moving toward privitization.

The decision to get out of the business of running a nursing home would have come much sooner, the commissioners said in a June release, if Community Development Block Grant funds had not been available to cover the costs of capital improvement projects there.

The 91-bed facility has a current residency of 65 and posted a 2016 operating deficit of approximately $455,000.

By Patricia Ann Speelman

[email protected]

Reach the writer at 937-538-4824.

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