Experts blast $42.7 million price Gilbert paid for future parkland

In a time of plunging land values and municipal-budget woes, Gilbert last year overpaid by millions of dollars for future parkland, local real-estate experts say. The $42.7 million purchase, approved 6-0 by the Town Council without a certified appraisal, was nearly 10 times the price paid per acre in several private sales of nearby land about the same time. The town's purchase "made no sense whatsoever to anybody, anywhere that was in tune with valuations," said Stacy Brimhall, owner of Langley Properties in Gilbert, who has been buying and selling land in the southeast Valley for years. He called the deal "head-scratching" and said that even at the height of the real- estate boom, the land would not have been worth that price. Town officials say they feared undeveloped parcels large enough for parks were becoming increasingly scarce as private developers scooped them up for commercial and residential projects.

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