LUMBERTON, NJ—The township fire department will auction off the old Lumberton Fire Co. No. 1 station, a building the was paid for by its members mortgaging their own homes years ago.
The Lumberton Township Fire Department is holding an online-only public auction for the 50-year-old firehouse at 561 Main St., from Jan. 17 to Jan. 23
Built in 1957, the firehouse is nearly 8,000 square feet with four engine bays on about one acre of land. According to fire company President George Sanders, the company's members mortgaged their homes to pay for the building's construction.
"That was how most firehouses were built back then," Sanders said. "That building has a lot of memories in it."
Assessed at $265,000, the starting bid for the property is $75,000.
The fire department moved from the old firehouse to where it operates out of today, a brand new public safety center that houses the fire department, the bureau of fire protection, the township emergency squad and the office of emergency management.
The new building opened in 2018 on Municipal Drive across from the township municipal offices. In 2017, the township bonded $5 million for the building's construction.
The building's age, the desire to have the township's emergency services under one roof and the old firehouse's location — the section of Main Street where its located is prone to flooding due to its proximity to the Rancocas Creek — were all factors in the township's decision to build the new public safety building, Sanders said.
The building has sat vacant since the department's move, as it took about a year to move 50 years worth of the company's property out of the building.
Sanders said the department has yet to determine how it will use the proceeds from the sale of the building.
The old firehouse property will be sold as-is, which comes with the obligation to remediate the site.
In 2011, a letter from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection identified soil on the property was contaminated by a leaking heating oil tank. According to two remediation proposals provided to the fire department last year, about 350 tons of contaminated soil will have to be removed.
The property will be bid online at www.warnerrealtors.com. For more information, visit www.warnerrealtors.com/auctions/detail/seller-ordered-auction-bw45298.
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