McIntyre building auction now has 'soft-close date': What does it mean for Portsmouth?

PORTSMOUTH — The federal agency that owns the Thomas J. McIntyre building has set a “soft-close date” for its public online auction of the 2.1-acre site for Wednesday, Sept. 27.

The General Services Administration announced the deadline Thursday in a press release.

To date, according to the McIntyre auction page, the GSA has received one $5 million bid for the property, which is located in downtown Portsmouth at 80 Daniel St., near the city’s popular waterfront.

The bid was received July 1. The identity of the bidder has not been released.

The news of the auction coming to an end comes while Portsmouth city leaders are pursuing one more "Hail Mary" attempt to acquire the McIntyre property for free.

McIntyre property still open for bids

GSA officials stated in the release that “there is still time for those interested in bidding to register and submit bids.”

In order to bid on the property, interested buyers must register in advance and submit a “$1 million registration deposit,” according to the GSA.

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The property, which is located at 80 Daniel St., is being sold as is.

Potential bidders are “invited, urged and cautioned to inspect the property prior to registering and submitting a bid,” GSA officials said in the release.

How will the auction end?

The GSA stated the online auction will officially end in one of two ways.

“At the auction close time if no bids … are placed within the inactivity period — defined as the previous 24 hours — or the auction is not subject to an inactivity period,” it will end, according to the GSA.

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Or it will conclude “after the inactivity period has passed without any bids … being placed,” GSA officials said in the release.

The online auction of the McIntyre property started June 20.

Portsmouth pursues work-force housing goal for McIntyre site

The City Council voted in August to try to convince the GSA to turn the property over to the city for free, so the existing 5-story federal building can be converted to workforce housing.

The City Council voted in July to seek the property through former U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg’s legislation, and to hire Washington, D.C. law firm Holland & Knight to work for them on the acquisition.

The city tried for the past several years to secure the 2.1-acre McIntyre property through the government's Historic Monument Program for $1.

GSA dropped Portsmouth from that program earlier this year when the city and its private development partner Redgate/Kane couldn’t agree on a redevelopment plan and subsequently sued each other.

That was just another chapter in at least a 20-year odessey for the city to acquire the property.

Mayor: End of auction not “a bad thing”

Reached Thursday afternoon, Mayor Deaglan McEachern said, “I don’t think it’s a bad thing for the city of Portsmouth that they actually set a closing date.”

“It’s a good deadline … it puts a deadline on us, it puts a deadline on the GSA and it puts a deadline on the congressional delegation,” McEachern said.

Though the GSA has set a closing date, McEachern stressed “the process is not going to be over by the election." (Portsmouth's city election is Nov. 7.)

“I would have a hard time understanding why they told us $20 million, and they accepted a $5 million bid,” McEachern said about the one bid the GSA has received during the public auction.

McEachern said he knows New Hampshire's congressional “delegation has been pushing and reaching out to the GSA,” about what the city wants to happen with the property.

The mayor believes if the GSA turns the property over to the city for workforce housing, “it could be a win for them (GSA) as well as for Portsmouth.”

“Senator Shaheen is advocating on behalf of the city of Portsmouth as the GSA and the city try to reach an acceptable outcome that works for all stakeholders," Ty McEachern, spokesperson for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, said in a prepared statement.

Advocate in Portsmouth isn't sure what to expect

Bill Downey, one of the leaders of Revisit McIntyre, a group opposed to the initial redevelopment plan proposed for the property, said “it’s difficult to know” what GSA’s announcement of a closing date means.

“The city clearly has a problem sharing information, they clearly have a difficult time with transparency,” he said.

He also is disappointed by what he described as “the boilerplate responses from the delegation.”

But he saved his greatest frustration for the GSA.

“It’s been clear to me from my personal experience with Revisit McIntrye that they (the GSA) were a hostile, bureaucratic, isolated agency that forget who they work for and have their own agenda, separate from us,” Downey said Thursday.

“They’ve given us the middle finger for decades,” he added. “You can see I’m not happy, and this is why you need congressional muscle to help them understand their role better.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth McIntyre federal building auction has 'soft-close date'