Columbus city leaders vote to list former Fire Station 4 as surplus property

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Have you ever wanted to own your own firehouse? The City of Columbus may have just the deal for you.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Columbus City Council voted to declare the former Fire Station 4 surplus property.

The move opens the door to getting an appraisal on the property and putting it up for sale.

The former firehouse sits at the corner of Airline and McCrary Roads in East Columbus. The city has since built a new Fire Station 4 further down Airline Road. The old building had become obsolete because its bay was too small for any of the trucks currently in the fire fleet.

It has also developed roof issues and the main bay door has been malfunctioning.

Once it is appraised the city has a few options.

“There are three ways to sell surplus, municipal property: The first is by advertising ‘for sale by sealed bid’, and we have historically only done that one or two times that I can remember, and most of the time you go to option three. But, the second option is if there’s a particular individual that wants to buy it or the business, that we can get an appraisal, and they can get their own appraisal, and we sell it for not less than the average of those two. And the third way is for us to just list it with a licensed real estate broker,” said Jeff Turnage, Columbus City Attorney.

Even though the building is not in use, it does house an emergency siren. Lowndes County EMA would need to move that before the firehouse changes hands.

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