New developer under contract to buy Twin City Foods site

Twin City Foods recently rejected the city of Lewiston’s $800,000 offer to buy its 11.5 acres near the confluence, but the long-abandoned property is now under contract with a big developer with big plans.

Lewiston Community Development Director Laura Von Tersch declined to identify the prospective buyer Tuesday. But real estate broker Justin Rasmussen said his client is a large developer in the western U.S. who is “extremely experienced and has a great concept” for multiple uses on the property.

Those include an upscale hotel and other buildings with a mix of commercial and residential uses, Rasmussen said.

“The concept falls right in line with what the city hopes to achieve with the piece,” he said. “If everything comes together, it could be exactly what everyone is hoping for.”

Rasmussen said he wasn’t able to disclose the identity of the prospective buyer, a potential closing date or the proposed sale price. Last year, the Ginn Group of Vancouver, Wash., was under contract to buy the land for $2 million, but ultimately backed out of its planned project. At the time, a Ginn representative said it was simply too large of an investment in a market that has promising yet unproven potential for return.

Some city officials, such as Von Tersch, then began advocating for the city to accept the $2 million sales agreement from Ginn with the intention of incrementally improving the property and remediating some of its problems. For instance, the city would have been eligible for federal brownfield grants to clean up contaminated soils.

“It’s a challenging site,” Von Tersch said Tuesday. “It’s got all the potential in the world, but you also have to deal with the soils and other things that could prove to be expensive.”

City ownership could have also helped clear up right-of-way issues, reestablish a city street grid on the property and end a dispute over the ownership of a wastewater line that runs under the Clearwater River. But it would have also taken an investment of several million dollars and several years.

The last city council declined to take over the purchase agreement, however, so it could leave the decision up to the new council that was seated Jan. 10. But councilors again declined to accept the sales agreement. Instead, they voted to make the much lower, $800,000 offer. Twin City Foods rejected that offer, Von Tersch said. But Rasmussen said the property went under contract with the new prospective buyer shortly thereafter.

When Ginn pulled the plug on its project, it was a pretty hard blow to the city’s hopes for redevelopment on the site. But Ginn did the city the favor of turning over all its predevelopment work so a future buyer could have a head start on a different project. Von Tersch said she will share all of that work with the new party. The city will also be closely involved with the project as it moves forward.

“We’re going to help facilitate all their due diligence and try to help them get to the finish line,” she said.

That will potentially include infrastructure upgrades around the site. A plan to use some of the city’s federal pandemic rescue funding to upgrade the water lines in the historic downtown is already in the works, for instance. The project is expected to alleviate problems like low fire flows, one of the longstanding impediments to development in the area.

Von Tersch said city officials met recently with the prospective buyer, and came away feeling good about the future of a piece of land that has sat unused since Twin City Foods razed its old vegetable processing plant more than a decade ago.

“They are just so excited to be here,” she said of the prospective buyers. “I just can’t wait to see how this rolls out.”

Rasmussen said he has been working on finding a buyer for the land since 2014, making it his most difficult property. But he now has high hopes that the community will be rewarded for its patience.

“It’s a matter of time,” he said. “That piece is going to turn into something great, it’s just when and how and who puts that together.”

Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com.