Packerton Yards may soon have a new owner.

George Petrole, CEO of Northface Development in Palmerton, who is currently remediating 120 acres at the former New Jersey Zinc West plant in Palmerton, approached the commissioners on Thursday about the possibility of submitting an offer for the former rail yard that straddles Mahoning Township and Lehighton.He asked if there were any formal agreements other than what the county had when it tried to sell the property twice via bid in 2014.Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said there was not and said the commissioners would review any offer submitted.Nothstein added that the current asking price for the property is $300,000.Petrole said after the meeting that he plans to submit a bid.He said in the past the commissioners said that they didn’t want regulated fill brought onto the site to remediate it. However, Petrole said the fill he uses, even though it is called regulated by the governing bodies, is considered clean fill in Pennsylvania. Regulated fill is debris from construction sites including the product of demolition.Petrole said that he had previous discussions with the county about the property and “We believe it to be a great potential for development but not industrial.“We have an opportunity to make something of it,” he said. “We think it could be beneficial to the community. I think it is far better served if it is developed in other areas, many of those are already being developed along the river. The river is the greatest asset that Carbon County has and we believe that anything that can be done along the river similar to other localities and in other states can be done in Jim Thorpe.”This isn’t the first time Petrole has eyed the former Packerton Yards rail yard.During the bidding process two years ago, Northface Development submitted a bid before the deadline, but then withdrew the offer.The history of the county-owned Packerton Yards dates back over a decade when the county purchased the property from Joseph and Elizabeth Zaprazny for $352,576.25.At that time, commissioners were O’Gurek, Nothstein and Charles Getz.Nothstein cast the sole “no” vote for the purchase.Over the course of the next eight years, the county spent $1.54 million on the property. Expenses included land appraisals, engineering fees, environmental studies, well drilling, building demolition, easements, consultant services, legal services and land development.Of that $1.5 million, the county received $621,700 in reimbursements from state and federal grants to help offset the costs. The county also secured nearly $5 million in other state and federal grants for the industrialization of the land once all roadblocks were cleared.But Mahoning Township denied the project, and the supervisors decision was upheld in both Carbon County Court of Common Pleas and Commonwealth Court.These decisions effectively ended the future for the county developing the site.Nearly all of the $5 million was returned because it could not be transferred to other uses within the county.