A sole “nay” vote was heard in Walter Hall Friday morning when one of Ohio University's trustees disagreed with his counterparts.
Trustee Kevin Lake voiced objection to a proposal from Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding to designate two parcels of land on East State Street that OU owns as "surplus property."
Lake said he was concerned that the university was acting prematurely by taking initial steps to sell the property — two contiguous parcels, three and five acres each, that are currently being leased from OU by Bob Evans and Baymont Inn — without waiting for the completion of OU's real estate survey.
"I'm personally not convinced in the long term that this is in the best interest (of the university) until we complete the survey," Lake said.
The eight acres of surplus property, where Bob Evans and the Baymont Inn are located on East State, was first brought up by the owner of the Baymont, who expressed interest in buying the property, said Golding said.
“The ground leases are fairly attractive to the companies sitting on them,” Golding said.
Lake's dissension prompted Sandra Anderson, board chair, to call Golding forward to answer questions about the proposal, which did not require a resolution but only a simple majority vote to pass.
Declaring the property as surplus is the first step in potentially selling it, Golding said.
Financially, selling the land would be better for OU than continuing to collect rent off it, he said.
OU's real estate survey is being done at the request of former OU Trustee Bob Kidder to implement a long term real estate strategy for the university, Golding said, who has been working on the project since he arrived at OU in 2010.
Golding said that if the university were to eventually sell the property, which OU only used when the university airport was located on East State Street, it would require action from the state legislature.
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— Danielle Keeton-Olsen and Hannah Yang contributed to this article.
