The Tiverton Town Council will meet Friday evening to discuss and possibly vote on whether to sell more than 72 acres of Tiverton Industrial Park land to Longplex-related entities for $1.26 million.

Under three separate proposed sales contracts that will be discussed privately by the council, the town would sell the land to Street Legal LLC, Longplex Ice and Golf LLC and LP Properties LLC — town documents show Longplex owner James Long as principal of all three.

Long intends to use the lands to house an enclosed automobile storage facility, a regional recreation ice rink and indoor and outdoor recreation facility, and a hotel.

What’s on the table:

• The first sale, to Street Legal LLC, would include 16.48 acres. Buildable acres would be sold at $36,699 per, and ‘open space’ acres at $1,000 per, for a total of $277,663.18. The parking facility would be built within these parcels;

• The second sale, to Longplex, would include 48.44 acres sold at $36,710 per buildable acre, and $1,000 for open space acres — 23 acres in total for a total of $858,393.50. The rink and recreational facility would be situated within these parcels;

• The third sale, to LP Properties LLC, includes 7.746 acres sold at $13,008 each, for a total of $100,761. A hotel would sit on these parcels.

Long history

Town officials have been speaking to Long for years about his desire to purchase property in the industrial park, but progress has not always been smooth and the business owner and town officials have often differed greatly on the value of the land, and whether the town should sell.

Long had previously made a $2 million offer to purchase about 127 acres of land within the park, but council members initially rejected that idea before discussing it again more recently.

At a recent meeting, councilor John G. Edwards V said he was open to further negotiations given the benefit to the town if unused land within the Industrial Park property gets on the tax rolls.

“If this is a viable project that is going to put a $20 million building on a piece of property where today the benefit to taxpayers is zero dollars, and it’s going to yield hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue, that’s just going to help us out," he said. "The more revenue we can get that is not on the backs of a residential taxpayer, the better.”

It was unclear Thursday what happened with the approximately 55 additional acres previously sought by Long, but not included in the roughly 72 he intends to purchase.

But prior to a recent council meeting, former council member Mike Burk wrote to the Sakonnet Times, and councilors, that he hopes land that the town needs for another project is not included in any future plans to sell:

"As a taxpayer, I simply ask that any agreement that may come out of tonight or future considerations from any potential buyer ensures that the town (and therefore the taxpayers) gets the best deal possible based on assessments that have been made of the property and that it does not require the town to relocate the planned recycling facility."