Can't say for sure how long the former fire station on Walnut Hill Lane near Marsh has looked like this, only because I haven't taken Walnut Hill to work since Monday, when it did not look like this. (I've been taking Marsh to Lemmon to Inwood to Maple, if you must know -- for tacos, delicious tacos.) But it looks like this now -- and, to be honest, it is a bit of an upgrade from its usual appearance as just one more city-owned structure allowed to go to seed.
The fire station, ol' No. 35, was built 'round '53 and replaced by its fancy across-the-street upgrade in December 2008. As recently as March 2010, the fire station wasn't boarded up; maybe you remember. But after windows were broken out, the city broke out the wood; can't believe it took this long for the building to serve as a canvas.
The city still owns the building, valued at around $180,000. For how much longer, I'm not sure:
City Manager Mary Suhm said back in May that the city's willing to sell off some of its surplus properties, but only when the time -- and the price -- is right. Said Suhm, "We don't want to just give them away." But just last week Suhm and CFO Jeanne Chipperfield told the council they will try to offload surplus properties to balance the books that appear to be short anywhere from $48.9 million to $87 million, let's wait and see.
I'm still waiting on City Hall to send a list of surplus properties it's hoping to offload. I'll post when it arrives.
Oh, and if this is a Dallas Contemporary spin-off, well, my apologies.