By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Bowling Green State University trustees today (5-5-2023) doubled the spending authority that the university’s Chief Financial Officer Sheri Stoll can use to purchase real estate adjacent to campus.
For 20 years, the trustees have given the chief financial officer the authority to spend up to $1 million buy properties as they become availability. The authority is renewed every two years.
In the past it was used to purchased Falcon Landing Apartments as well as several properties on Thurstin including an old church, which are now parking lots.
In the past 10 years, it has been used to buy properties on the southern side of East Wooster Street across from campus. “The houses we acquire are prioritized in our minds by their undesirability and the impact negatively they have on prospective students and their parents,” she said.
They have typically been torn down and left as greenspace or parking lots.
Stoll said these unsightly properties that were the sites of unruly and distasteful displays during the first day of schools. That included large banners telling fathers stop for a beer and drop off their daughters. Some indecent proposals were also made to mothers.
That and the raucous parties on overgrown lawns are now a thing of the past along East Wooster, Stoll said.
Trustee David O’Brien said that given it has been $1 million for 20 years it was a time to increase the amount and moved to increase it to $2 million.
Stoll said no purchases have been made in the last two-year cycle.
However, four purchases have recently been made by Centennial Falcon Properties, the non-profit corporation created to fund the construction of residence halls.
They are: 1002 E. Wooster St., 1204 E. Wooster, 1318 E. Wooster, and 1240 E. Wooster, for a total of $950,000.
Other purchases are pending, she said.
Stoll told the trustees that few properties remain available.
Only a handful of properties remain along that “main drag,” she said.
Two years ago, Stoll said she questioned whether to ask to have the authority renewed.
Also, at the meeting Drew Forhan, a 1981 graduate was elected as chair taking over for Marilyn Eisele, a 1979 graduate, who is leaving the board. Forhan, of Hudson, is the founder and chief executive officer of ForTec Medical.
Eisele, Cleveland, is chief financial officer of Miller Tanner Associates.
The trustees also named Dr. Thomas Shehab, a 1990 biology graduate from Dexter, Michigan, as a national trustee. A medical doctor he works in health care investing.
[RELATED: Trustees act on promotion, tenure, & emeritus status for faculty]
