Fire sale: You can buy a Fremont firehouse for $1

FREMONT, Calif. (KGO) -- This could be one of the best real estate deals in the Bay Area. A decommissioned Fremont firehouse could be yours for $1 if you're willing to move it.

Developer SiliconSage has been working for two years on a new rental apartment and retail development along Fremont Blvd. in the old Centerville district, and the community was given two choices.

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The firehouse could be incorporated into the new project, or it could be demolished. The City Council asked the developer to try to sell it first. So, bidding is open for the next 60 days.

SiliconSage President & CEO Sanjeev Acharya says the cinderblock structure, built in 1957 to replace the original firehouse that burned down on the same site, will be expensive to move. The company gave ABC7 News access to the two-story structure. It's in poor condition. Fire station #6 has been abandoned for 12 years. There's evidence of vagrants living there.

Long-time Fremont resident Al Minard, sporting a NUMMI jacket from days working there, said, "All we have are memories and dreams."

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The old firehouse will be a lost memory if it's demolished, he noted.

SiliconSage held about a dozen public meetings to solicit input from various community groups and the public, and it believes the consensus was not to preserve the old firehouse as part of the new project.

Harbir Bhatia, the builder's director of community benefit and innovation, said the firehouse will be remembered with a wall featuring the station's brass fire pole and historic photographs of the firehouses.

There are estimates that it might cost up to $500,000 to move the building a short distance. That would not include land.