Rowan County Commissioners on Monday tentatively approved a $72,750 purchase offer from a company looking to buy land in Speedway Business Park.

Bowtie Properties submitted an offer in November to buy 6.17 acres of land at 1293 Speedway Boulevard, which is near the Peach Orchard Road Interstate 85 exit. County records call the property tract No. 8. Commissioners gave preliminary approval to the offer during Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting and started the upset bid process, which requires a 10-day waiting period for any further offers before the sale is final. County commissioners would give final approval to the sale after the waiting period.

If the sale goes through, Bowtie Properties Manager David Eller said his company would seek to build a 28,000 square-foot warehouse facility for Makson Incorporated. Makson owns Bowtie Properties.

Eller, who is also the president and owner of Makson Inc., said the warehouse facility would be used for the company’s construction and motorsports operations. A warehouse in Speedway Business Park would consolidate multiple other Makson-operated warehouses, Eller said.

Eller said Makson has experienced significant growth since it opened in 2004. As an example, he said Makson has gone from 10 employees to 80 in the previous 10 years. Salisbury is the company’s headquarters.

Bowtie’s offer for the land in Speedway Business Park is less than the tax value of about $88,600. However, County Commissioner Craig Pierce characterized Makson’s offer as a fair price. Pierce said the rear portion of the land isn’t suitable for a building.

“Only about 2.3 (acres) of it is actual buildable property because of the waterline restrictions and the topography of the actual lot,” Pierce said. “We’re not discounting this property off of the tax (value). What we’re simply doing is quantifying that all of the 6 acres is not buildable property. We’re not penalizing the purchaser to have to pay us for land he isn’t going to be able to use.”

He estimated the purchase price amounted to about $35,000 per acre when unusable land was removed from the total acreage.

Other Rowan County commissioners didn’t offer extensive comments on the offer during Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting.

Pierce made the initial motion to accept Bowtie Properties’ offer. Commissioner Judy Klusman offered a second. Commissioners tentatively approved the offer unanimously. Unless county commissioners schedule a called meeting, a final vote on the sale would come in January at the earliest.

Bowtie’s latest offer isn’t the first made on the property in Speedway Business Park. In August, Rowan County received a $40,000 offer for tracts No. 8 and 7. The offer never made it to commissioners for an approval, but Pierce cited it as a reason to accept Bowtie’s latest proposal. The latest offer values land in Speedway Business Park at a higher price.

Terlin Johnson, a realtor at Home Realty and Mortgage, is listed as the broker for Bowtie’s offer.

Contact reporter Josh Bergeron at 704-797-4246.