Parkersburg URA considers sale, eminent domain acquisition | News, sports, jobs

(Meeting Updates – Photo Illustration – MetroCreativeConnection)

PARKERSBURG – Members of the Parkersburg City Council, acting as the Urban Renewal Authority, will tonight consider offers to buy three properties and acquire another eminent domain.

The URA meeting will start shortly after the regular council meeting scheduled for today at 7:30 PM in the council chamber. The first readings of ordinances increasing the mayor and aldermen’s pay in the next legislative session are among the items on that agenda.

The URA has received applications for the purchase of three plots of land it owns.

The first is an offer to buy 804 Swann St. for $100 from Leon Bayer, who owns adjacent property and said in his application that he mowed the lot. “For about twenty years.” He wants to use the 3,980.4 square meter plot as an extension of the garden.

A $1,000 bid for the 3,900-square-foot lot at 1409 20th St. came from Parkersburg resident Harry Linsinbigler, who, according to materials provided with the agenda, recently purchased an adjacent property and plans to redevelop. The URA site, which was acquired in 2021 and the structure subsequently demolished, would initially be used as a staging area but could be the site of a residential unit in the future, documents said.

Your Hut LLC is offering $3,700 for 1109 13th St., which was acquired by the URA earlier this year and the building was demolished. The application states that the buyer plans to consolidate the 2,613-square-meter lot with an adjacent lot to build a new single- or multi-family home.

The final item on the agenda is a resolution to acquire 2111 36th St. through eminent domain “with the aim of restoring slums and destruction and protecting public health and safety.”