If you want a nice piece of real estate in a very, very happening part of town, well, the old Guilford County Animal Shelter looks like it’s about to go on the chopping block.

At a Thursday, Nov. 21 work session of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, County Manager Mike Halford brought the subject up before the board discussed some serious staffing problems at the current new shelter on Guilford College Road.

Halford said the demolition of the old shelter had been completed and he wanted to know if the commissioners had a desire to declare the old shelter as surplus property so staff could look into selling it.

“We have obviously the old animal shelter and the board directed us to demolish that site and that’s been completed,” Halford said. “Obviously, security at the site and some of those things are a challenge.”

He pointed out a very interesting fact that many people do not know about that property: The City of Greensboro and The City of High Point also have small ownership rights in it.

The land on West Wendover Avenue is very near one of the largest retail areas in the state of North Carolina – the stretch of West Wendover before and past I-40 that is teeming with store, restaurants and other establishments.

The actual motion at the Nov. 21 work session was to declare the land surplus and allow staff to come back with options.

Halford said that the tax value of the property was just under $1.1 million.

Greensboro and High Point will also have to agree to declare it as surplus property before any sale takes place; however, county staff sounded like that would not be problem.  It also sounded as though, from the conversation at the work session, that if Greensboro or High Point wanted to buy the property from the county, those cities would have a right to do so before it went on the open market.

Commissioner Alan Perdue said at the work session that there were some restrictions on the deed and he asked the county staff to look into removing those so there would be clean title on the property when it does go on the market.

Ever since the Guilford County Board of Commissioners decided to relocate the county’s animal shelter and sell off the existing shelter property, county legal staff and facilities staff have been trying to untangle the complex string of deals, deeds and contracts that had been strung together in the nearly 65-year period since the county bought the three connected lots on West Wendover Avenue as a home for a county animal shelter.

Part of the land is on loan to the Humane Society of the Piedmont, and, over the year’s there’s been a great deal of confusion over who gets the shelter’s large parking lot when the county leaves.

The most valuable part of the property – the frontage on West Wendover Avenue – is owned by the county but is occupied by the Humane Society of the Piedmont.

According to the contract Guilford County signed with the Humane Society in 1985, the organization can continue using the land – and the building the society built there – as long as it continues to provide animal services at that location.

That’s just one issue with the land. There’s a sharp drop off at the back of the property and other topological concerns that could give potential buyers some pause.

Former Guilford County Property Manager David Grantham, who retired in 2011, told the Rhino Times years ago that the old Animal Shelter property is unquestionably prime real estate in one of the most desirable locations in Guilford County. He said that, when he was the property manager for the county, many times – even when there was no talk of the shelter moving – buyers approached Guilford County in an attempt to purchase that land.

“That corridor was prized for a reason – that was the major road to High Point,” Grantham said.

Grantham said it makes a huge difference in the sale price of the land whether the Humane Society lot is included or not.

“The back two lots aren’t going to bring in much without that frontage,” Grantham said in 2017.

“But if you had that frontage, you could name your price. Wendover is so hot right now,” he told the Rhino Times back then.

Grantham said he isn’t sure how Guilford County came to the current state of owning the property with two cities and the Humane Society.

“It’s kind of a bastard agreement,” Grantham said. “They can stay there as long as they want to.”

Guilford County purchased the three lots for a total of $5,500 from Allen and Billie Hutton on Oct. 9, 1958. The Humane Society building sat on Lot 1, which is 2.34 acres with a 4527 W. Wendover Ave. address.

Lot 2 is the middle one, 3.67 acres at 4525 W. Wendover Ave., where the Animal Shelter sat before being demolished.

 Lot 3, the back lot that shares the 4525 W. Wendover Ave. address, is 2.68 acres. High Point has one-eighth ownership of the back lot and Greensboro has three- eighth’s ownership. Guilford County owns the remaining half of that lot.

In November 1985, Guilford County entered into an agreement with the Humane Society which stated that, in exchange for $10 “and other valuable considerations,” the county does “bargain, sell and convey the land” to the society for as long as it uses the property for animal services.

That agreement also allowed the county to put a Guilford County Animal Shelter sign on the front lot. The contract stated that, if the Humane Society dissolves or becomes “inactive,” the land reverts back to Guilford County.

According to the Guilford County Register of Deeds Office, the Guilford County Animal Shelter property was re-surveyed in 1992 and, at that time, part of Lot 1 was transferred back to Guilford County. It was added to Lot 2 where the main Guilford County Animal Shelter building now sits.

In 2016, former Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips said that he and former Commissioner Hank Henning approached the Humane Society about moving with the new shelter, but clearly the Humane Society wanted to remain where it was.

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