Spokane County poised to auction off house and surrounding acreage near Bigelow Gulch Road

Prospective homebuyers may soon have a chance to buy a house and surrounding 4 acres in northern Spokane Valley at a public auction.

Following the completion of the decadeslong Bigelow Gulch Urban Connector project, Spokane County is poised to sell a property it scooped up for $237,350 in 2008 to use in the new alignment of the once-twisted thoroughfare.

The county commissioners held a public hearing on the matter earlier this week, and are expected to vote on whether to put the property at 5426 N. Otto Lane up for sale next Tuesday.

If the motion to sell is approved, the double-wide manufactured home with an attached garage and a hole in the roof will be auctioned off on GovDeals.com at a starting bid of $438,000, said county engineer Deborah Firkins. The county auctioned off a former Spokane County Sheriff’s Office helicopter on the same site earlier this year.

Firkins said the property has an assessed value of $438,000 in its current condition, despite the leaky roof. The L-shaped home boasts three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a dining area and a family room.

It will be sold via a quit-claim deed, if the commissioners move forward, and the closing costs will be split evenly with the highest bidder. The county will pay for standard title insurance for the new owner.

The property is an amalgamation of two that were purchased by the county and eventually bisected by Bigelow Gulch Road. The county also cut into a third adjacent county-owned property to the east, leaving three small sections of land on the road’s southwest side that were bundled into their own new plot.

The East Valley School District purchased the southwest plot in 2022 for $65,000, which extended the East Valley Middle School grounds by 4.5 acres – enough land to renovate the district’s sports fields in the area.