OAKLAND — The 116-year-old fire station on International Boulevard is one of the city’s oldest public buildings.
It’s been in operation for so long, the kitchen is a tiny lofted area that once stored hay, back when the Oakland Fire Department had horses.
Now, Oakland’s third busiest firehouse may move a couple blocks away to a 70,000 square-foot lot at 1745 14th Avenue, a road that also serves as a prime artery through the city’s San Antonio neighborhood.
For 44 years, the 14th Avenue building — surrounded by ample parking space — has belonged to East Bay Blue Print and Supply, a business first founded in 1929 that now may need to move to a new home if the city uses a longstanding law to seize the property.
Oakland city officials have offered to purchase the site from its current owner, Grace Von Querner, with $5 million disbursed by the state last year for “eminent domain,” the law that lets government agencies take properties away from their owners for public use.
City officials have presented East Bay Blue Print with other sites to set up the print shop. But they say no other alternative destinations exist for Fire Station 4.
“We have institutions (here) that have longevity,” Councilmember Carroll Fife said at a recent committee meeting, “but our fire station has outworn its ability to function for individuals experiencing fires or medical emergencies.”
The City Council will decide Tuesday on a “resolution of necessity” to seize and purchase the 14th Avenue lot. The vote at the 1 p.m. meeting requires two-thirds approval to pass.
An agenda report details how the current city building at 1235 International Boulevard “does not meet modern fire station service standards” and lacks adequate facilities.
The building’s size and vulnerability to earthquakes leaves it “unequipped to handle Oakland on its worst day,” department spokesperson Michael Hunt said in an interview.
Firefighters from Station 4 were among the first to respond to the December 2016 fire at the Ghost Ship warehouse, where 36 people perished in the state’s deadliest single structure blaze.
If the city does pursue eminent domain, it may need to move quickly, because the $5 million in state money — spearheaded by state Assemblymember Mia Bonta — must be returned if not used by June 30.
“We’ve already provided relocation services to the property owner (and) identified a number of locations in the neighborhood and within Oakland,” Brendan Moriarty, a city real-estate manager, said at the meeting last week. “So there’s no reason this business needs to shut down (or) these jobs need to be lost.”
Von Querner moved the East Bay Blue Print business in 1981 to its current address, the former site of the Safeway. She said at last week’s meeting that a relocation is “not impossible, but it’s going to be very hard.”
“We’ve been here so long,” Von Querner said. “We have people come in and say, ‘Oh, my father dealt with you.’ They all know where we are.”
Oakland, meanwhile, finds itself in a rare moment when all of its 25 fire stations are in operation, including stations 25 and 28, which were temporarily closed in January due to city budget constraints.
The full service won’t last long. City officials are exploring a new two-year budget cycle that would involve “browning out” two stations at a time, based on fire safety needs.
Check back for updates after Tuesday’s vote.
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.