It may officially be summer now, but the Town of Camp Verde is still in the middle of some pretty extensive spring cleaning.
The Town Council recently put plans in motion to purchase around 17 acres of land on Industrial Drive for use as an equipment and storage yard.
While the town had been renting the property for a similar purpose since 1998, some of the land had become overrun and neglected.
Town employees have been cleaning up the property and organizing what they have found.
“It’s nothing really exciting,” said Deborah Ranney, who works for the town’s Public Works Department. “It’s nothing of great value. Just a lot of equipment and materials that have been placed out there over the years.”
Ranney compared it to someone who might have an old shed they’ve rarely visited.
“Some of it has been neglected,” Ranney said. “We’re looking at what we want to do with it all.”
Some of the equipment and materials could be used for other purposes, Ranney said. Other equipment could be put up for auction. The town often utilizes the Internet to try and recoup some money for items and goods it no longer needs.
“We’re making decisions about what can be repurposed, reused or recycled,” Ranney said.
Old asphalt could be recycled and used in road repairs, for instance, a boon in a time when the town streets department doesn’t have the money to keep up with all the needed maintenance on the more than 100 miles of road inside town limits.
Other materials could be used in other future public works projects.
A priority is to upgrade security and install new perimeter fencing, Ranney said. It’s a good idea. In recent weeks after purchasing the land, the town discovered that people had been trespassing on the site and illegally dumping tons of garbage and trash. Arrests were made.
The town would also like to get the yard in shape to eventually store vehicles, Ranney said.
The town paid $1.4 million to purchase the land from the previous owner, Beta Ventures LLC.
Except for the down payment, the money for the purchase came from the highway fund with money that can only be used for projects like this one.
The land is home to a building with a mechanical bay capable of housing some of the town’s large equipment, according to Public Works Director Ron Long. The land also has a metal shop building and a masonry office building.
The buildings need some upgrades, but the town didn’t have to pay extra for them.
The price for the land had dropped significantly since the town first considered an outright purchase of the land several years ago.
The town had looked at other areas for a possible equipment yard, including town-owned parkland off of State Route 260 and McCraken Lane, but ultimately decided the centralized location of the Industrial Drive property and the fact it already came with some infrastructure made it ideal.
