Bowling Green State University continued its strategy of buying up adjacent properties with the purchase early this month of 914 E. Wooster.
Centennial Falcon Properties, the non-profit real estate arm of BGSU, bought the rental property for $412,000 from Al-Wotaid Real Estate LLC. The university now controls the block from College to Crim, as well as much of the 1000 block.
Like other rentals that the university has purchased the structure, built in 1900, will be torn down. BGSU spokesperson Dave Kielmeyer said that there are no short-term or long-term plans for use of the property. “For the time being, it’ll be green space.”
The demolition will begin soon, but he did not know the exact date.
Once it is gone, one structure will remain on the block, a 60-year-old five-apartment building, Falcon Landing II at 920 E Wooster, maintained by BGSU.
The property at 914 E.Wooster was valued on the Wood County Auditor’s site at $131,000.
Kielmeyer said because property owners are aware of the university’s interest in adjacent properties, BGSU ends paying “a premium” for them.
The board of trustees has for a number of years authorized the administration to spend up to $1 million to purchase property as it becomes available. In the past two years, the university purchased five properties along East Wooster. This is the first purchase under the authorization granted at the May trustees meeting.
“If we have the opportunity to acquire adjacent property we’ll take advantage of it,” Kielmeyer said. “It’s about cleaning up that gateway to the university and city.”
This newest acquisition is just one lot down from the Falcon Health Center, and across Wooster from the Mauer Center, the new home for the College of Business, which is under construction and scheduled to open next August.
