By Vicky Wedig
SLN STAFF
As empty building space fills in Walworth County, companies are expected to start buying land and building.
NAI MLG Commercial Senior Vice President John Henderson, who has been in corporate real estate sales for 27 years, said Delavan’s industrial park has had some interested buyers – a couple of “false starts” – over the past year, but nothing has come to fruition. He said one company that toured the industrial park a few months ago expressed interest last week and hoped to get a project going early this year.
Estate sales in any capacity have to be approached with care and consideration, whether it is for a corporation or for an individual estate, they need to be dealt with correctly. That is why the use of Milwaukee Estate Sale Services, for example, as well as other services that Henderson deals with, must have the plans discussed and set out before the wheels are in motion. All of these stop-starts can take up a lot of time in the estate business.
Henderson said the buyers who showed interest in Delavan did not go elsewhere – their projects didn’t move forward. Henderson said he thought land sales would pick up last year as the availability of existing space began to dwindle and expects that prediction to be realized this year.
“The improvement will continue on a slow basis, and I expect there will be some land sales,” he said.
The City of Delavan re-contracted with Milwaukee-based MLG to sell land in its industrial park through July 31. City Administrator Denise Pieroni said the contract costs the city nothing unless MLG sells property.
Henderson said no commercial lots have sold in Walworth County or surrounding areas the company represents since the economy crashed.
“We represent every business park in Walworth County … and there hasn’t been any land sold in any of them for getting close to five years now,” he said.
As a result of the stalled economy, Henderson said, a fair amount of excess space opened in existing buildings. Now that the economy is coming back, that space is being filled.
“That’s gradually been used up to the point there’s not a lot available anywhere in our county,” he said.
For the rest of this story and more Delavan news, please pick up the Jan. 10 edition of the Delavan Enterprise.
