Iberia Parish Assessor Rickey Huval and local appraiser Bill Elliott came up with very different market values for the eight acres New Iberia recently agreed to purchase from Spanish Towne Invest-ments LLC.

The city plans to put a multipurpose center on eight acres of Spanish Towne Center, a 23 acre development near Louisiana 14 and U.S. 90 on which the Hampton Inn Suites is building and in which a shopping center is expected to locate.

Elliott, whose appraisal was used in the contract, appraised the value at $2.68 million, or $335,000 an acre. The total appraised value is exactly double the $1.34 million the city was allotted to receive from the state for the purchase. The city received a $1.34 million discount from the developer, Spanish Towne Investments LLC, for the purchase for a total expense of $167,500 per acre.

Advertisement

Huval said he currently has those same eight acres assessed at a value of $1.2 million but this includes values from 2005. He said if he had to reassess the land now, it would be priced at around $200,000 an acre, for a total market value of around $1.6 million.

Recent land sales Huval cited in his assessment of market value include one from 2007 at $170,000 an acre and one from 2008, along Louisiana 14, at $235,000 an acre. Those properties were all raw land between 1,000 and 1,500 feet of Spanish Towne Center, he said.

“I don’t go looking for the highest (sale value) and I don’t go looking for the lowest. I have to use an average,” he said, adding that someone doing an appraisal for a seller might be inclined to look for numbers on the high end.”

Elliott said he could about Huval’s assessment, adding “my appraisal’s my appraisal.” He said his appraisal was unbiased, and actually done for New Iberia Mayor Hilda Curry and the city of New Iberia, though Spanish Towne Investments LLC paid for it.

One of the recent nearby sales Elliott cited was 1.9 acres sold for a hotel on Sucrose Drive, at $5.40 a square foot, or $235,224 an acre.

Get Wet car wash sold for $9 per square foot, or $392,040 an acre, and the land for the Hampton Inn Suites hotel in Spanish Towne sold for $7.48 per square foot, or $325,829 an acre, Elliott said.

Sales such as these are adjusted for size and improvements to get market value, he said.

The assessor’s evaluation, he said, is also one of the factors that goes into an appraisal.

Elliott also pointed out this land has all public utilities.

Once they purchase land, however, land owners in Spanish Towne Center are responsible for paying off their land’s remaining portion of the bonds that were sold by the city to local banks for Spanish Towne to finance the construction of roads and sewers.

Councilman Dan Doerle questioned the $2.68 million figure in the council meeting and, along with Councilman Raymond “Shoe-do” Lewis, abstained from voting.

“When someone’s donating something to an organization, they get a tax (deduction),” Doerle said. “If you exceed that true number, then someone’s getting something they shouldn’t deserve.”

Doerle said generally the larger the tract of land purchased, the less the cost per acre, adding he had been contacted by many real estate people who estimated the value of those eight acres at somewhere between $1.2 million and $1.6 million.

“I appreciate these people (at Spanish Towne Investments) doing what they’re doing, but is that number the right number?” he asked.

Elliott said he was “very surprised” the city got the land for the price it did once the donation is taken into account, but that a convention center would have been attractive to the developers because it will increase property value.

“Let’s plant a seed and let’s let it grow,” he said. “If it was me (in Spanish Towne Investments), I would of made the city a deal. (The convention center is) going to make all this other property very valuable.”

Doerle said the $2.68 million purchase price will do the same.

“This purchase will affect more than just this one transaction,” he said.