Major Business Sold

Center For Extended Care at Amherst, 150 University Drive

The graying -- or some cynics would say decaying -- of America is a growth industry, as baby boomers head into their twilight years. And it must be pretty good when a business would suddenly be worth 400% over the current building valuation.

The Center For Extended Care at Amherst, a 122 bed sprawling long term care facility on University Drive (opposite CVS) just sold for $13 million. The town had the building valued at $3,192,700 or four times less than the property's recent selling price.

I asked assessor David Burgess if that means the valuation will go up for the new owner, and at $20,000 tax revenue per million in valuation it would add up to a significant sum should he bump the value by a few million.

Since the deal is so recent he has not interviewed the main players, but he said it's quite possible the sale number was a "corporate financing price", which for lack of a better term is phantom money.

Thus the valuation will probably not go up at all.

 The Dakin Estate, now fallen into ruins

Kind of like a dozen years ago when Amherst College purchased the Dakin Estate near their golf course for $4.3 million to prevent Barry Roberts from developing it. The assessed value did not jump at all, and today is still valued at way less than $1 million. 

Either way, it's still good to see major business deals happening in our town.