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Iowa Central to buy Budget Host site

College has no urgent plans for the site

The former Budget Host Inn property in Fort Dodge is being purchased by Iowa Central Community College, which has land right next to it.

The college is buying the property at the corner of Kenyon Road and U.S. Highway 169 from Joseph D. McMahon Jr. and Tamara McMahon, of Fort Dodge, for $1,450,000.

Sale documents were signed Wednesday, and the deal is expected to close on Dec. 10.

“The opportunity is perfect for us,” college President Dan Kinney said. “We’re excited to be able to get that property.”

He said there are no immediate plans for the site.

“It could be used for anything,” he said.

The deal, he said, offers the college a unique opportunity to get some land right next door to it.

He said the college’s main Fort Dodge campus is “landlocked” because it is surrounded by Friendship Haven, the Fort Museum and Frontier Village and U.S. Highway 169.

The property that includes the former Budget Host Inn, Eilers Steakhouse and Laser Auto Wash is immediately west of the college property where the Woodruff Apartments are.

On Tuesday evening, the college’s Board of Directors gave its approval to borrowing money for the purchase.

The board unanimously approved a $1,435,000 General Obligation Plant Fund Capital Loan Note.

That debt has a 3.25 percent interest rate. It will be paid off over 10 years.

The Budget Host Inn, Eilers Steakhouse and Laser Auto Wash closed last spring.

On Jan. 23, Great Western Bank filed a foreclosure action on the property because of a $2,213,587 judgment amount.

The McMahons filed for bankruptcy on April 9.

The land was to be sold at an Oct. 23 sheriff’s sale because of $53,312 worth of delinquent property taxes. That sale was canceled.

The Budget Host Inn opened in 1990 in a building that was once a Quality Inn.

Eilers Steakhouse opened in the hotel in 2013. Its name was a tribute to the Eilers Hotel which once stood on the City Square where the Fort Dodge Public Library is now. The hotel was destroyed by fire in 1994.

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