Lumber News

Former Quaboag Transfer Company Property in Palmer Auctioned for $2.6 Million

PALMER – The 66-acre former Quaboag Transfer Company property was sold Wednesday at auction for $2.6 million to the owner of a New York lumber company.

As a crowd of approximately 70 people watched, Paul W. Scheer, president of Aaron Posnik & Co. started the bidding at $1.5 million.

A representative of United Bank, which holds the mortgage, offered the first bid.

Auction coordinator Mark C. Czupryna was on the phone with the high bidder, Andrew Goodman, who owns Sherwood Lumber Co. in Islandia, N.Y., on Long Island.

Goodman, who could not be immediately reached for comment after the auction, still has to sign the purchase and sale agreement for the property.

Besides the 66 acres, the real estate includes a 50,000-square-foot warehouse built in 2003 and a 3,000-square-foot office building built in 1985. The property is on a rail line.

According to the Sherwood Lumber Corp. website, the company was founded in 1954 and supplies more than 1,800 lumber yards and manufacturers with building materials from environmentally managed producers in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Quaboag Transfer, owned by Bell Hill Properties, went out of business within the past month, according to a town official. The property, in the Palmer Industrial Park in the Bondsville section, is valued at $1.6 million, according to the assessor’s office.

The new owner also has to pay approximately $20,000 in unpaid water bills and personal property and real estate taxes owed to the town, Sheer said.

The auction was delayed an hour because there was an attempt by an individual to buy the property before it was auctioned, according to a lawyer at the auction.

At the beginning of the auction, Scheer told the crowd that anyone interested in buying the property had to have $100,000 ready.

“If you don’t have $100,000, don’t even bother asking me a question,” Scheer said.

This article originally appeared on masslive.com, click here to view.