Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over: Georgetown Heating Plant Auction To Go For Another Day

• February 19, 2013

by Shilpi Paul

The Georgetown Heating Plant. Courtesy of GSA.

The bidding activity for the Georgetown Heating Plant has heated up between three anonymous bidders over the last 24 hours, which means that the auction will go on beyond its “soft close” of Tuesday at 5pm.

Currently, the high bidder is willing to pay $5.2 million for the GSA-owned property, a bid entered at 12:52pm EST on Tuesday. According to the rules of the auction, after the soft close, the highest bid must maintain its status for 24 hours. So, in short, the bidders that are beat out have 24 hours to think over whether or not they want to enter a higher bid. If no further bids are entered today, the auction will end at 12:52pm on Wednesday, February 20th.

The first bid of $500,001 (just one dollar over the minimum deposit) showed up on February 14th. Within a couple hours, a second bidder jumped in, bidding $700,001. A third bidder entered the game the next day, bidding $905,000.

Since then, bidders #2 and #3 have been in fierce competition. Today, the two have engaged in a steady back and forth, driving up the price in increments of $200,000. A fourth bidder entered the fold shortly before this article was published, bidding $4,907,000 around 1pm EST.

However, bidder #2 has spent the most time in the top spot: every time another bidder enters an amount, a bid from #2 shows up almost instantaneously, $200,000 above the previous bid. Bidder #2 seems to have an Ebay-like escalation clause in place, up to an as-yet-unknown upper limit. Sources familiar with the property posit that the final price may be close to $8 million.

The winning bidder will get the building as-is, and will likely have to go through a Planned Unit Development (PUD) process as they determine the future use.

Similar Posts:

• Will Fundrise Buy the Georgetown Heating Plant?
• Future of Georgetown Heating Plant Site Unclear as Auction Approaches

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/bidding_heats_up_georgetown_heating_plant_auction_to_go_for_another_day/6674