Few details on $3.5 million of downtown property sales
Share
Tweet
A month after they were listed for sale, there are still no answers to why $3.5 million in property — most of it on Main Street — went up for sale, and the properties are still listed for sale.
Chris Thorgesen, the owner of the properties, declined to comment on why he is selling the properties, but the large red plywood signs continue to adorn the half-dozen buildings around town.
Still, he said in a brief phone call from the Three Northmen Meadery, which he co-owns, he had no plans to leave Haines.
The properties listed for sale include Alpenglow Pizza, Thor’s Gym, the Eagles Nest Apartments, and the Townhouse Apartments building, where CVN has its offices.
Those interested in the properties have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements to get pricing information, which some realtors called an unusual move.
“I have no idea why somebody would do it,” said Garrett Schoenberger, a realtor in Juneau who has a commercial properties for sale in Haines.
Pam Long, a broker at Haines Real Estate, said while NDAs are commonly required to get access to revenue information for commercial buildings, the request for an NDA for pricing information was “unusual.” But, she said she and others in her office signed the NDA in order to better understand the market. She said as the property owner, there were no rules precluding him from requiring the NDA.
Thorgesen defended the requirement, saying he didn’t want frivolous requests for pricing.
“I didn’t want a bunch of tire-kickers,” he said.
Haines Mayor Tom Morphet said that he hadn’t heard anything else about the property sales, which he previously called a concern for the health of downtown. Morphet reached out to Thorgesen shortly after the properties were listed to try to find a way to work with the borough to keep the buildings filled.
“I wish the signs weren't so big and prominent,” he said.
Morphet said he had heard an idea of the borough purchasing at least one of the buildings — Thor’s Gym — to turn it into a public recreation center. But Morphet said that idea hadn’t been looked into as public officials are prioritizing other issues at the moment.
Several commercial downtown properties have been listed for sale for years. Some of the properties Thorgesen purchased had also been for sale for years before he bought them around 2017.
Schoenberger, the Juneau realtor, said he’s had the Pioneer Bar/Bamboo Room listed for several years without finding a buyer. He said it’s a slow time in the Haines commercial real estate market, despite residential values booming.
“It's a slower market in Haines and that's simply due to the size of the population, sometimes those properties take a long time to sell, but that could change greatly if the mine goes in or if Haines opens itself up to more tourism,” he said.
Schoenberger said he didn’t believe prices were the biggest barrier to finding a buyer, rather it was finding the right buyers.
Morphet, the Mayor, said he also thought larger machinations of the economy and demographics could make it hard for the properties to sell, especially all at once. He pointed to the rise of online retail hollowing out smaller retail shops nationwide, and the baby-boomer generation looking to scale back on commitments.
“I wouldn't expect them to sell very quickly,” he said.
