He didn't get much of a building if it truly cost $50K for that size, even the "cheap" builders haven't made them that cheap for that size for several years.

Morton and the rest of them have a cheap base price but they have almost no snow or wind load and usually 1 man door a window or two and maybe a 10'-12' sliding door.  Start adding for proper wind and snow load and all your doors and windows and it gets pricey fast.  $25-$30/ft got you a turn key building in most cases 2 years ago, shouldn't be much more now.  Shell prices were $8-$10.