Fire Sale! Ex-Fire Station Destined for Used Car Lot

Tom Giffey |

What do you think should go into the former Eau Claire Fire Station No. 10 on North Hastings Way? A craft brewery? A hostel? An agency dedicated to all your supernatural elimination needs? (Those were some of the ideas offered by Volume One readers when we asked back in December.) If your answer was “Used car dealer,” you were right. On Tuesday, Feb. 25, the Eau Claire City Council voted to sell the former fire station, which has been vacant since the summer of 2018, to SVEE Metalworks for $225,000. Provided the sale is finalized – the closing date is supposed to occur by May 29 – the new owner plans to relocate Outlaw Auto Sales, 2204 Seventh St., to the old fire station and to “add detailing services and rentable office space,” according to city documents. In late 2018, the city had negotiated to sell the building for $365,000 to Valley Media Works for TV and radio studios, but that deal fell through. At the time, $365,000 was considered the property’s fair market value, but that dropped to $300,000 last year after the discovery of asbestos, which will likely require remediation by the new owner. Other than SVEE’s $225,000 bid, the only other proposal received by the city was a $20,100 from an unnamed auto-body business.