SHELBY – The future of Shelby’s historic fire station may be shifting from the city to a private owner.
Shelby’s Building and Grounds Commission unanimously decided on Thursday to recommend to Shelby City Council that the 146-year-old building be put up for sale. Commission chairman Jim McCormick suggested the recommendation in order to take the financial burden off the city.
“My idea for the taxpayers of Shelby is to get rid of it and let somebody else worry about it,” McCormick said. “The city of Shelby shouldn’t be a landowner.”
The recommendation of the commission is not set in stone, and Council may choose to heed or ignore their recommendation.
First constructed in 1872, the Shelby Fire Station is one of the oldest fire stations in the United States. When the station was first constructed, Ulysses S. Grant was president. The battle of Little Bighorn would take place four years after its construction.
The city of Shelby announced on Oct. 6 that a new fire station would be constructed thanks to a generous donation by local businessman and philanthropist Grant Milliron. The new station will be constructed on High School Avenue just north of the Shelby Justice Center.
When it comes to the old station, Project Manager Joe Gies explained in March that the the historic building’s options are restrictive and cost-prohibitive, particularly due to the fact that the building sits in the 100-year floodplain.
Shelby’s Historic Preservation Commission could approve any new plans for the building, as long as alterations did not take away the station’s historical significance. The Historic Preservation Commission’s chair Pat Carlisle emphasized that any restoration and repairs to the building would go smoother for a private owner.
“If we’re talking federal or state dollars, the process is slow and requires a lot of approval from a lot of different levels of government,” Carlisle said. “If it is totally a private project done with private money, it still has to come through our commission, but it will go faster because it will not have government hoops to jump through.”
Carlisle noted that any changes made to the building would have to be approved by the Historic Preservation Commission due to the building’s status on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, if the station was torn down, the commission would need to meticulously document the current state of the building.
“Would we like to see it saved? Yes,” Carlisle said. “But do we understand its issues? Absolutely, both floodplain issues and restoration issues.”
One Shelby resident and business owner who would like to see the station saved is Brian Crum, owner of Roselawn Mini Golf and Arcade. Crum proposed turning the station into Ohio’s largest pinball parlor similar to Pins Mechanical Company in Columbus, Ohio.
“The biggest pinball parlor I’ve seen in Ohio has maybe 39 machines, so if we could do 50 or more then we’d have an attraction,” Crum said.
Crum’s plan for the building includes an evacuation plan for the machines in the event of a flood, and bringing in a food truck instead of building a kitchen in order to mitigate potential flooding damage as well.
“A lot of the part of revitalizing this town will be to do things to bring people into the town,” he said. “Obviously we have some nice retail places but retail doesn’t seem to generate traffic so much. A lot of our restaurants are doing well, and I’d like to do something to complement those facilities downtown.”
