MoDOT makes $675K in property sale blitz

The Missouri Department of Transportation has been looking for new ways to raise funds, and one method was so successful that it will be repeated next month.

MoDOT recently completed a five-day sales blitz, dubbed Realty to Roads. Twenty-one properties were advertised for sale by auction or sealed bid, and the event brought in $676,739 for the state. The properties were all land owned by the highway department but no longer needed to build, improve or maintain the highway system, according to a MoDOT news release.

“Selling the properties in a concentrated block rather than one at a time helped us to generate interest among property buyers and move idle land out of our inventory,” said Gregory Wood, Realty to Roads project director in MoDOT’s Right of Way Division, in the release.

The event was successful enough to spark interest in a second sales event, scheduled for April 26–30. The department will list 32 properties, ranging from a quarter-acre to 200 acres.

Information about the state highway properties for sale, including four parcels that went unsold in the recent event, is available at MoDOT's Realty to Roads Web site. The site lists two properties in the Springfield division: a 199-acre parcel in Christian County south of Ozark on U.S. Highway 65, and a 0.7-acre parcel in Laclede County east of recently relocated Highway 5.  

“We have made it a priority to get rid of land we’re no longer using and put the proceeds toward better and safer roads and bridges,” Wood said in the release. “It not only makes good business sense, but it ultimately benefits travelers on our highway system.”