Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Farmington alleyways
“We're looking straight up Alder Street now,” said Mark Hellinger, pictured. Hellinger and wife Liz petitioned the Town of Farmington to sell a group of plotted, but unused, streets and alleys in Farmington.
The Town of Farmington approved a sale of alley, unopened alley and unopened streets in what is known as the Truax Addition and Sheehan's Addition at its Aug. 14 town council meeting.
For a price of 50 cents per square foot, the town council approved the sale to Mark and Liz Hellinger, who own bordering property for their business, Audiopile, on First Street.
The unused, undeveloped right-of-ways are now a hayfield that is dissected, on paper, by the platted paths.
“To my mind it was needlessly cut up by these right-of-ways,” said Mark Hellinger, who is also a candidate for Farmington town council in November.
The area encompassed is 36,000 square feet, or about a quarter of an acre – amidst two- and-a-half blocks of land the Hellingers own – in an area known in the plat maps as Truax Addition and Sheehan's Addition.
Hellinger indicated he has no interest in the property for his own commercial usage.
“It's an investment in our community,” he said. “It unifies the properties. We're hoping it makes it more attractive to someone who might want to build there in the future.”
Hellinger brought a petition on the matter to the town council in July.
The specific vacated stretches are as follows; alley between lots 2, 3, 4, 10 Truax Addition; unopened alley of block 26, Sheehan's First Addition; unopened alley of block 41, Truax Addition; unopened street of Alder between Fourth and Fifth streets, and unopened street of Church between Fourth and Fifth streets.
Truax and Sheehan's additions are sections on Farmington's plat map. Truax is mainly residential while much of Sheehan's has remained largely rural.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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