Reforms could juice up state land auctions

SCOTTSDALE - As the Arizona State Land Department closed out its fiscal year this week with two auctions totaling $35 million, imagine how different state trust land bidding could be.

What if Craig Jackson of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. set up his circus tents and primed the pump, so to speak, with booze and entertainment to sell some product? In this case, auctioning state trust land to the highest bidder.

If Jackson can get $5.5 million for a 40-year-old Shelby Cobra, what might prime acreage in Scottsdale bring on the auction block?

I bring this up to exaggerate the point that the state land auctions and the limits on how the Land Department operates might not be in the best interest of the state and the school children served by the trust land sales.

Bargain basement site

Does it matter that a $150 million real estate auction is held in the dingy basement of an aging government building with jail trustees roaming the halls?

Yes, demand for the state's property is what drives sales, but a better setting might in a subtle way encourage freer spending and generate more interest.

Renting an inexpensive hotel conference room for an auction might pay for itself.

Adding an auction Web cast and even online bidding might gin up even more demand for the state's 9.2 million acres of trust land.

Others contend that better appraisals, ones that more accurately reflect the current market, would spur more trust land sales.

Land czar touts reform

Land Commissioner Mark Winkleman argues that the Land Department needs to be unshackled from the arcane rules that govern how trust lands are sold or leased.

Those rules, put in place at statehood in 1912, limit how the department operates and constrain its ability to maximize profits from the trust lands, Winkleman said in an op-ed piece published earlier this week in The Arizona Republic.

The commissioner touted the benefits of a voter initiative - Conserving Arizona's Water and Land - which could qualify for the Nov. 4 ballot.

Preserve would grow

The initiative, submitted to the Secretary of State on Wednesday, would:

• Protect 570,000 acres of trust land from development, including 5,000 acres in Scottsdale that could be added to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

• Modernize the methods for planning and selling or leasing trust lands in cooperation with local communities.

• Provide funding for the Land Department to better manage its assets and maximize revenue for the trust beneficiaries, school children.

2 deals close out year

Meantime, the Land Department on Monday managed to sell nearly 17 acres near Pinnacle Peak for $12.75 million to a Scottsdale development group, JTW PPR LLC, headed by John Wanninger.

Plus, Phoenix was the winning bidder for 812 acres northeast of Interstate 17 and Carefree Highway that sold for $22.4 million. Phoenix intends to add the tract to its Sonoran Preserve.

Land Department sales in the fiscal year ending Monday were off significantly with several auctions postponed or canceled as demand for dirt plummeted.

But Winkleman said that the department managed to contribute $372 million from sales and leases to Arizona schools.

Send real estate news to peter.corbett@arizonarepublic.com.