By Hayley Ferguson

$1.5M Asking Price

Former Fire Station No. 1 to be listed on open market

Oct 7, 2019 | 8:07 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – A year after fire crews officially moved to the north side of the South Saskatchewan River, a sale price for the former Fire Station No. 1 on Maple Avenue SE has been approved by city council.

“It’s been sitting there now for quite some time and we have done some assessments on how the property is and it’s now available for sale,” said Mayor Ted Clugston.

Council approved a recommendation from the Economic Development and Land department to list the property at $1.5 million.

Also approved as part of the recommendation was that the former fire station would be listed on the open market, unlike many other city-owned properties.

Citing that it is a “surplus property” that isn’t part of the city’s land development strategy.

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“Oftentimes we try to use social engineering, believe it or not. So with 601 1st Street, for example, we as a council, we could have just sold that and there could have been a convenience store there. But council had a direction that we were not going to do that and that we were going to try and do something different as a gateway property. That is a very, very different piece of property,” Clugston explained.

Clugston says that by putting it on the open market it will allow the city to make sure they are getting the best price possible.

“We see this as really just a regular sale. As I said like your house or if you as a private citizen owned a building on Maple Avenue, that you would want to sell it at the highest and best price and not care about whether there’s any social needs or social engineering you want to do with it. So we’re just taking more of a business approach I would say.”

Clugston said that with Maple Avenue being one of the busiest streets in Medicine Hat, he has already heard from interested buyers.

“Before this even happened, I bet you even before station one was moved to Altawana Drive people knew that this was coming up for sale at some point. I bet you I’ve had six or seven people. And from everything. From not for profits to very interested businesses,” He said.