At a glance
South Bend officials have focused on selling city-owned properties that aren’t needed for core public services. The city has disposed of 71 properties in the past four years.

Here are some significant deals:

• Bendix Corp.: Curtis Products, a South Bend company that fabricates steel tubing, paid $1.1 million in 2014 to buy the massive Bendix complex on the city’s west side. The city bought the property in 2000 as part of an $8.9 million incentive package for Robert Bosch Corp.

• LaSalle Hotel: Downtown South Bend Inc. bought the old hotel for $350,000 in 2002 to prevent the nine-story landmark from being razed, then transferred ownership to the city in 2004. RealAmerica, based near Indianapolis, bought the LaSalle for $1 last spring and is in the midst of a $12 million rehabilitation that will add 67 apartments to downtown.

• Ignition Park: South Bend-based Great Lakes Capital purchased a lot at the technology park for $225,000 in 2014 and is in the process of building Catalyst One and Catalyst Two — two structures that will house the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Facility as well as young tech companies.

• Colfax@Hill: A local development group paid $20,000 a year ago to buy the empty lot at Colfax Avenue and Hill Street. A four-story building with 17 apartments and retail space is taking shape on the site.

• Blackthorn Golf Club: The city built the golf course in the 1990s to anchor Blackthorn Corporate Park, north of South Bend International Airport. The city sold the course to a private investor group for $1.6 million last year. The course has remained open for golfers under the private ownership.

• College Football Hall of Fame: The football museum moved to Atlanta at the end of 2012, leaving South Bend with an empty building. JSK Hospitality, based in Roseland, agreed in April last year to pay $1.2 million for the building and incorporate it into a plan for a new hotel and company headquarters.

Sources: South Bend Department of Community Investment and Tribune archives
SOUTH BEND — An improved real estate market in South Bend has been good for private developers during the past few years.

It's been good for the city's government, too.

One area of focus in Mayor Pete Buttigieg's administration has been selling city-owned properties that aren't needed for core government services.

While many city-owned properties are used for those core services — such as utilities, public safety and parks — dozens of others were acquired over decades as part of economic-development strategies or attempts to save historical buildings from demolition.

Since Buttigieg took office, however, the city has sold more real estate than it has bought. City officials have succeeded in disposing of 71 city-owned properties since the beginning of 2012, according to the South Bend Department of Community Investment.

That list of properties is diverse.

It includes a large manufacturing complex: The former Bendix Corp. headquarters and factory that South Bend-based Curtis Products bought in 2014. It also includes the LaSalle Hotel, a long-vacant downtown landmark that Real America, based near Indianapolis, is converting to an apartment building. Other parcels are located in organized developments like Blackthorn Corporate Park on the northwest side and Ignition Park south of downtown.

In total, the city's 71 land deals have generated more than $3.4 million in sales proceeds over the past four years, the Department of Community Investment reported. At the same time, the city shed the costs of managing those properties.

Also, because many of the properties are now privately owned, they will produce at least $360,000 per year in new property-tax revenue, according to the Department of Community Investment. That new tax revenue will grow because 11 of the parcels have buildings under construction or were sold in the past year and haven't yet been reassessed with updated taxable values.

The city still owns about 800 properties, which range in size from large public parks to small slivers of real estate that provide access to utilities. There are 150 to 200 parcels in Ignition Park alone.
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