Nobody bought the county farm.

The deadline for bids from mall developers on the 75-acre cornfield came and went Wednesday morning.

“No bids were received, so we took no action today” at the County Board rules committee meeting, said committee chairman Don Lundeen.

“I’m not sure where we go from here. I don’t know if we move ahead and do something to put it on the market or whether we hold onto this big chunk of property,” said 7th District board member and NIU student Tim Bagby.

“I think we’ll sit back and take our time. We have several options,” Lundeen said.

Bagby said the board will decide what to do with the Route 23 property at the next meeting.

Lundeen said the property bid specifications were stiff. “The way the bids were structured, it made it difficult to bid on the property—we asked for a lot of cash up front,” he said.

The board wanted $25,000 per acre and asked for a deposit of $187,000, 10 percent of the $1.87 million purchase price.

DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow said interested developers told him there was no way a viable mall developer could build a mall.

The board should “go back and revisit the specs. Bring in developers and get insight on how to package it,” Sparrow said.

Because the board was divided on the mall issue, developers did not know if they could get the 18 votes required to approve the project, he said.

“Why should they tie up $187,000 for 10 days only to be rejected” by the board, Sparrow said.

If the board does not want to sell the property to mall developers, they will not be able to sell it for as much money, he said.

“Some board members were against a mall but maybe they would like some other project,” Sparrow said.

However, he said a mall will be built somewhere in DeKalb.

Building a mall is “a high priority and goal of the city council. It’s only a matter of time before it happens,” Sparrow said.