By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Rick Ramsey is buying a fire station.
Now he just needs to figure out what exactly to do with it.
Ramsey, 62, of Corvallis, is in the process of buying the former Yachats Rural Fire Protection District station on West Second Street in downtown Yachats. He and the district have agreed on a price of $485,000 and the sale is expected to close in late September.
In the meantime, Yachats fire personnel are hurriedly clearing out the last of their stuff from the 72-year-old station. On Tuesday, Ramsey already had an excavation company clearing dirt that had pushed up against the sides of two buildings and improving a long driveway on the west side of the station.
But other than a lot of cleanup and partial remodeling to come, Ramsey has begun searching for the right tenants.
“I want it to be something that will benefit Yachats,” he said in an interview with YachatsNews. “I’d rather be empty for awhile than have the wrong people in here.”
The sale involves three parcels and two buildings – the main station and a small house at the rear of the property that needs extensive work. Ramsey hopes to fix that first and find a renter — maybe someone who also has a business on the first floor of the station.
Ramsey’s initial thoughts are to have the station be a mix of commercial and residential uses, taking advantage of three large fire engine bays on the first floor and former offices, kitchen and bathrooms on the second.
“It’s a pretty interesting property,” he said. “I just have to do more research to see what would be a viable operation.”
Investors, business owners
Ramsey and his wife, Joanne, are no strangers to business or investing in property. He’s a plumber by trade and owns a heating and air conditioning company that specializes in climate controls for medical and Class A offices. Joanne Ramsey is a business adviser.
They have investment properties in Salem, Corvallis, Mexico – and a complex of 300- to 700-year-old buildings in Newcastle West, Ireland.
The Ramseys recently sold a rental house in West Salem and a cabin near Detroit Lake and began looking for other investment opportunities.
“I was basically looking for commercial properties on the coast,” he said.
Before seeing the former Yachats fire station, the Ramseys had been to Yachats just once – to celebrate a wedding anniversary.
Station draws lots of interest
The sale of the station and conversion to other uses is significant to the community for a handful of reasons.
The fire district hopes to use proceeds from the sale to bolster its faltering finances. For the past three years it has been using a bank line of credit of up to $550,000 to pay bills from the spring to the fall, then paying the loan back once property taxes arrive in November.
The old station and rental house behind it have been empty since the district moved to its new station on the north edge of town in November 2019. Although there may be parking issues, a commercial/residential space on one of the city’s busiest streets just a block from U.S. Highway 101 could be a significant addition to Yachats’ downtown core.
But it took nearly two years to get a commercial assessment on the property, work out an agreement with the city (which owns one of the parcels), and prepare it for sale.
Fire district administrator Frankie Petrick said previously she fielded lots of calls from people suggesting uses for the station prior to it going on the market. But there was no one with the capital to do something.
Once it did hit the market in May with an asking price of $550,000, the district’s real estate agent received strong interest – and presented three offers to the fire board.
The board preferred Ramsey’s offer because he would take the building “as is” – which will likely require a $20,000 to $30,000 fix of two sewer lines.
City needs to resolve payout issue
Separate from the building’s future, there is another issue looming between the fire district and the city.
A small lot under the east equipment bay is actually owned by the city of Yachats, which got the land decades ago when it took over the assets of the Yachats Water District.
Back then, the city agreed to lease the lot to the fire district for $1 a year so it could expand the station. Payments were made for a time and then forgotten. In 1992, the city and fire district agreed that should the station ever be sold, the city would get a proportional piece of the sale based on the value of its lot.
The commercial assessment last year put the city’s portion at 24 percent of the entire property’s value – or $116,000 of the $485,000 sale price.
In June, two Yachats council members – Anne Stott and Anthony Muirhead – thought it was unfair for the city to claim its share. That set off a short but inconclusive discussion over whether the city should enforcement the 29-year-old agreement, let the struggling fire district keep the money, or use some or all of the city’s proceeds to encourage a new owner to develop workforce housing.
That issue is expected to come up again during the council’s meeting Aug. 18.
“My goal is to contribute …”
Ramsey believes that his success means finding the right mix of commercial, retail or residential tenants that the community will embrace and support. He is advertising on Craigslist for potential tenants to come look at the building, having friends in the building management business inspect the property, and plans to talk to Yachats business owners and residents.
“I’m trying to lean toward people who will contribute to the community,” he said. “If you want a town people want to live in, you provide services that people want.
“It’s my goal to contribute to Yachats,” he told the fire district board during a meeting Monday. “I’m happy to focus on what’s missing in Yachats.”