Town of Gilbert Takes Advantage of Real Estate Market and Buys Park Land
The Town of Gilbert, using a portion of $80 million of bond money, has agreed to purchase 63 acres of land near Germann and Greenfield Roads from a landowner for a special events center. Town Manager George Pettit said that "[t]he opprotunity was there, the land was there", but that the Town needed to issue bonds to fund the purchase. In addition to the private land, the Town purchased or leased an additional 121 acres from the Maricopa County Flood Control District.
The Arizona Republic reports that Gilbert set aside money as a cushion to help repay the bonds if system development fees are not sufficient, the Town was able to take advantage of favorable interest rates and a less aggressively priced real estate market than has existed in the past few years.
