Developers and the city are expected to submit sealed bids Friday in a private auction to acquire one of the North Shore’s most valuable properties-the Highland Park Country Club.
Prospective bidders have until 5 p.m. to submit the bids to Sheldon Good & Co., the Chicago-based auction firm coordinating the bidding for LaSalle National Bank of Chicago, which owns the 160-acre parcel.
The sellers will have five business days to review the offers and then decide whether to accept or reject them, said Bud Blinick, senior vice president for the auction firm.
The city had been negotiating with the bank to purchase the property for many months, but those negotiations broke down in September when city officials rejected the bank’s $11.5 million price as too high.
The parcel includes a country club, an 18-hole golf course, swimming pool, 13 tennis courts and at least 22 acres of hardwood forests.
City officials want to purchase the golf course and forests to preserve most of it as open space. Developers look at the parcel as a lucrative housing development opportunity if the land can be rezoned.