LANSING, Mich. — It is not Hawaii, Key West, or St. Thomas, but in the eyes of many outdoors enthusiasts, a tract of land in northern Michigan rates as paradise of a different composition. Skip the sand, palm trees, and conch shells — this is forests, lakes, rivers, and wetlands, and the opportunity to host a pair of nesting bald eagles.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources will put 80 parcels on the auction block, with most of them located in the state’s prime outdoors recreation corridor in central/northern Lower Michigan and in the Upper Peninsula.
These plots of surplus public land range in size from less than an acre to 146 acres, and total about 1,200 acres. They are being sold by the state since they are isolated from other MDNR managed lands and are therefore difficult to manage.
Although many of the parcels are forested and some offer riverside or lake frontage, they have been deemed to provide limited public outdoor recreation benefits and are considered better suited for private ownership.
“In a lot of cases, it becomes a management issue,” said Scott Goeman of the MDNR, who added the parcels of land undergo an extensive review process before they are placed in the auction.
“There is an internal process we follow, with different divisions weighing in along the way,” he said. “Some of these parcels have been in the review process for years, but all of them ultimately have to be approved by the director of the DNR before they are added to the sale.”
Goeman said the Michigan DNR manages a variety of tracts across the state, amounting to some 4.6 million acres of public land, and the agency also owns the mineral rights on about 6.5 million acres. The auction of surplus properties takes place once or twice per year, with the bulk of the proceeds plowed back into purchases of other properties.
“The goal is to sell these properties and then be able to get more land that is better suited to our mission,” he said. “The land fund gets most of the money from this auction, and that is used to buy new parcels.”
Goeman said most of the buyers in past auctions have been individuals. He said an internal evaluation determines the approximate value of each parcel, then a minimum bid is established. Successful bidders must come in at or above that minimum. Goeman added each auction usually sells about 70 percent of the parcels up for sale, and the rest are moved to a “buy now” listing on the MDNR website.
The parcels in the upcoming sale, which are located in Alpena, Arenac, Barry, Bay, Cheboygan, Dickinson, Gladwin, Iron, Kalkaska, Lake, Menominee, Midland, Montmorency, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oakland, Osceola, Oscoda, and Roscommon counties, will be offered in a sealed-bid auction that opens Dec. 12 and runs through Jan. 10. The bald eagle nest is found on one 40-acre tract in Menominee County.
Information on the auction, including the minimum bid price for each parcel, property descriptions, and conditions of sale, is available at michigan.gov/landforsale. Property listings will not be available for bid until the auction start date. At that time, instructions for submitting a bid and printable bid forms will be provided on the website. Sealed bids must be postmarked by midnight Jan. 10, and all bids will be opened Jan. 24.
Buyers should be aware all of the properties offered for sale by the MDNR carry the restriction that any aboriginal antiquities found at the site, including mounds, earthworks, forts, burial and village sites, mines, or other relics, are not part of the sale. The state also reserves the right to explore and excavate for these materials.
There also are mineral rights restrictions on many of the tracts up for sale, dictating the MDNR retains the rights to all mineral, coal, oil, and gas lying on, within, or under the sale properties, with the exception of sand, gravel, clay, or other non-metallic minerals.
Printed property information can be requested from the DNR Real Estate Services Section, P.O. Box 30448, Lansing, Mich. 48909-7948. For general information about the sale of surplus, state-managed public land, call Michael Michalek at 517-284-5950.
Contact Blade outdoors editor Matt Markey at: mmarkey@theblade.com, or 419-724-6068.
First Published November 30, 2017, 7:00 p.m.