Teacher retirement fund sells 38 acres in LR

The Arkansas Teacher Retirement System has sold land in west Little Rock for $1.85 million to an intermediary for Crain Family Holdings LLC, said system Executive Director George Hopkins.

The latest appraisal for the 38.23-acre tract on Chenal Heights Drive valued the land at $1.8 million, he said.

The sale closed Dec. 10, Hopkins said.

Although Crain Family Holdings is the buyer of the property, it is now held by an entity set up by Standard Abstract & Title Co. while a 1031 tax exchange is completed to comply with Internal Revenue Services rules, he said. A 1031 tax exchange is a method to sell a tract of real estate at the time one plans to buy other real estate with the proceeds. It would allow Crain Family Holdings to avoid paying capital gains or income taxes now by deferring the taxes until the newly acquired property is sold, he explained.

The teacher retirement system is the state government's largest retirement operation, with investments valued at more than $14 billion and more than 100,000 working and retired members.

The system agreed to restrict the use of the tract to a multiunit retirement facility when it purchased the land from Deltic Timber in 1999, Hopkins said. The units must be owned by one owner with no patio homes or condos sold to individual owners, and owners must be at least 55 years old, Hopkins said.

This tract is part of the property the system purchased for a planned retirement housing project that was scrapped a dozen years ago, he said.

In March 2002, the trustees dropped plans for a retirement village there after the project's estimated price rose from $82 million to $105 million. About $12 million had been spent before the project was halted.

Crain Family Holdings plans to build senior housing units on the property, Hopkins said. He said the planned development would be similar to the existing Pickering/Allwine development from a previous teacher retirement system sale.

Larry Crain Jr., owner of Crain Family Holdings LLC, could not be reached for comment by telephone Tuesday.

The system owns an additional 12 acres at the same location in west Little Rock that is under contract to be sold for $4 million to Crain Family Holdings LLC. That sale is scheduled to close by June 15, said Hopkins. The appraisal for that property is $4 million, he said.

The street boundaries for these properties are Chenal Valley Drive and Rahling Road, said Gail Bolden, deputy director for the system.

In June, the system's trustees authorized the sale of the system's other properties in Arkansas, except for the system's headquarters in Little Rock and the Victory Building in Little Rock, if the sales price meets or exceeds its latest appraised value.

The system's other properties in Arkansas include the Woodland Heights retirement center in Little Rock and the state Department of Human Services buildings in Texarkana and West Memphis. Under the resolution that the trustees adopted in June, they would have to approve any sale of system property in Arkansas that is for less than the appraised value.

Metro on 12/17/2014

Upcoming Events