06.26.2015
MARTHA'S VINEYARD GAZETTE - Going, gone for $5.15 million: 51 acres at Southern Woodlands in Oak Bluffs
Steve Myrick
Friday, June 26,
2015 - 8:09pm
A partnership led
by a South Boston bar owner and condominium
developer will pay $5.15 million for 51 acres in Oak Bluffs once planned as a
luxury home development.
Paul Adamson, a
real estate developer who also owns Shenanigans, a South
Boston pub, was the high bidder at a foreclosure auction Friday,
held on the property off County
Road formerly owned by Corey Kupersmith.
Mr. Adamson, along
with partners Chris Sage and Malcom Barber, said they often vacation on Martha's Vineyard and now intend to spend more time here
in the near future. "There are four or five lots going to friends that want to
live here," Mr. Adamson said. "Families that hang around together in Boston, now we'll hang
around on the Vineyard."
The purchase
includes 20 buildable lots and two open space lots once planned as the Preserve
at the Woodlands, partially improved but never built. Mr. Adamson said the rest
of the lots will be sold individually.
About 20
prospective buyers gathered under a tent at noontime Friday for the auction.
Auctioneer Justin Manning of J.J. Manning Auctioneers asked for a bid of $8
million to get the auction started, but found no takers. Harry Patten of the Florida development firm
Patten Companies opened the bidding at $5 million. A subsidiary of the Patten
Companies held a controlling interest in the property, after buying the
mortgage from People's United Bank in Connecticut,
which had begun foreclosure proceedings. A company spokesman said earlier if no
buyers offered an acceptable bid, Patten intended to buy the property back and
sell individual lots at auction. Local buyers were on hand, hoping for that
possibility. But when Mr. Adamson raised the opening bid to $5.15 million, Mr.
Patten urged the auctioneer to sell, and the auction was over.
"It's a beautiful
piece of property," Mr. Patten said. "It's time for us to move on. I think it's
going to be a great asset for Oak Bluffs."
Among other things,
the sale is contingent on Patten Companies resolving any permitting issues with
town boards and with the Martha's Vineyard
Commission. Also, the seller promised to deliver ownership of the roadways and
an additional open space lot, at no further charge, at the closing.
The town of Oak Bluffs will benefit
also from the sale. The buyer will be required to satisfy all tax liens on the
property, which amount to about $350,000. Under another term revealed Friday,
owners had agreed that if the property did not sell in its entirety, they would
designate four lots to be used as either a buffer for nearby conservation land
or for affordable housing. But that term became moot when the property sold as
a whole.
The property was at
the center of a divisive political battle beginning in the early 2000s when Mr.
Kupersmith, a Connecticut
developer, tried unsuccessfully to win approval for a private luxury golf club
at the Southern Woodlands. A compromise plan emerged in 2004 when the land bank
bought the majority of the property for conservation; a subdivision was allowed
on the remaining 51 acres but never built.