It appears that a historic St. Paul, Minnesota neighborhood has prevailed in its fight to save a piece of its history.
St. Paul’s oldest municipal building, a former firehouse near W. 7th Street, will be redeveloped rather than razed, thanks to a $500,000 forgivable loan from the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority, Council Member Rebecca Noecker announced on August 11, 2016.
The Hope Engine Company No. 3 firehouse was built in 1872 and remained in operation as a fire station until 1965.
Details of what the firehouse might become were not yet available. But Noecker praised the work of neighborhood activists who scrambled to save the old station after discovering a developer’s plan to knock it down to make way for a new Marriott hotel.
An official announcement said: “After months of concern and activism over the fate of Engine Company #3 Firehouse, the city’s oldest public building, the Housing & Redevelopment Authority (HRA) yesterday authorized a forgivable loan to the developers to preserve and redevelop the firehouse.”