Jasper furniture and electronics company selling Ind. and Ky. acreage at auction

 

Kimball International, a furniture and electronics assembly company headquartered in Jasper, will sell 27,000 acres of its land holdings in Indiana and Kentucky at public auction later this fall.

The largest tract is 11,700 acres in Crittenden and Union counties in Western Kentucky. Other Kentucky land is in Breckinridge, Meade and Butler counties. Kimball acreage for sale in Indiana is in Perry, Harrison, Crawford, Daviess, Martin and Orange counties.

The company plans to offer the property for sale in approximately 70 parcels of various sizes, and the auction company may break it down even further, said Martin Vaught, Kimball director of public relations.

Details of the sale will be announced within a couple of weeks, he said.

Kimball, a 58-year-old firm that reported $1.4 billion in sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, acquired some of the land more than 45 years ago. The woodworking company planted trees on much of the acreage, including black walnut plantations, and conducted extensive timber stand improvement practices.

There is a variety of terrain in the acreage, including timberland, tillable farmland, wetlands, ponds, lakes, prime hunting property, pasture land and some with coal reserves. All of the auction sales will be of outright land.

"We are selling all of our undeveloped properties because Kimball is no longer a vertically integrated company, and the acreage is not part of our raw materials or production processes," Vaught said. "Our business model has changed, and we are converting the land into cash to help fund our continued growth. The land has been a good investment for us and has significant value."

Kimball officials would not comment on any reserve price for the sale or what they think the property is worth.

When Kimball bought the Crittenden-Union tract in Western Kentucky in 1998 from Alcoa, it had an asking price of $13 million, or just a shade more than $1,000 an acre. Recent average farm sales in the area have been about $2,000 per acre. Timberland values could range higher or lower than that figure, depending on the species and quality of the trees.

As for a possible effect of the land sales on nearby communities, Vaught noted some "are excited by the opportunity for increased tourism, hunting and coal mining."

The Crittenden-Union property, at almost 19 square miles, is the largest contiguous privately owned parcel in Kentucky. Among its attributes are more than four miles of Ohio River frontage, one of the few areas above the flood plain along the Kentucky side of the river between Henderson and Paducah. The land ranges from flat to gently rolling fields to steep hills and rocky bluffs. The property also includes coal reserves that have been mined by various companies.