Officials at Oregon State University-Cascades Campus say they are confident they’re getting a good deal on the land where they plan to build a four-year campus.

A large discrepancy separates the county’s estimated real market value of the West Bend sites and the proposed sale prices.

One parcel, a 10-acre wooded area owned by Cascades Property Holding LLC, is being sold for $4.98 million, though it’s real market value is only $2,918,950. When the site last sold in 2002, the owner, Brooks Resources, made $1.971 million from the sale, according to county records.

The other site, a 46-acre working pumice mine owned by 4-R Equipment, is being sold for $7.875 million; its real market value is $1,636,540.

The university has estimated that preparing that land could cost an additional $4 million to $7 million.

Why is OSU-Cascades paying so much more than the estimated real market value?

According to Deschutes County Assessor Scot Langton, the answer lies in the procedure for determining the real market value of property.

“We valued the property based on the legally permissible highest investment use, which is determined by zoning,” Langton said.

The 46-acre site is zoned for surface mining and residential, and the site was valued to reflect that.

As a result, any assessment would not account for other potential uses, such as building a strip mall or a branch campus of a public research university.

If the site had been zoned to permit a university, Langton said, the real market value would have been higher. OSU-Cascades officials are working with the county to have the zoning changed and do not anticipate any difficulty.

“We’re also looking at a point in time back from where we are today,” Langton said. “These values come from Jan. 1, 2013 — so over 10 months ago. The market was real strong before the crash and it went way down, especially bare land, and it’s recovering now.”

Another factor complicating the math, and one that could explain the price of the 10-acre site, is the uniqueness of the location.

“Appraisal looks at like properties and tries to get a comparable price,” said Kelly Sparks, OSU-Cascades associate vice president for finance and strategic planning. “The sites had a unique set of properties. There are very few parcels in Bend that met our space needs and our vision of an urban integrated campus; meaning that students are in walking distance of amenities. It’s hard to arrive at a comparable price with such a unique site.”

Langton agreed there are not many similar sites in Bend. “If there’s not a big supply,” he said, “that can create quite a bit of demand and raise prices.”

Sparks said the university used two local assessors, as well as an appraiser from Portland.

“The numbers we received gave us a good starting point, considering what the firms had paid for the land, and the potential usage of the sites,” Sparks said. “Negotiations happened over a long period of time; both sites had their own complexities. We went back and forth a lot. But we paid a fair, appropriate price.”

Sparks declined to state the values provided by their appraisers.