By Mark Fischenich
The Free Press
MANKATO, Minn — A 2017 effort to improve ambulance response times to Mankato’s city center and west-side neighborhoods by opening a second ambulance station has been successful and will become permanent.
After six years of leasing a former fire station on State Street, Mayo Ambulance has decided to purchase the space for $416,000. Prior to the lease, the only ambulance station in Mankato was on Bassett Drive on the city’s far eastern side.
The Mayo Clinic’s emergency medical transportation service, known as Gold Cross at the time, agreed to set up a second ambulance station through a lease of Mankato’s Fire Station 2. The station had been closed since 2005 when Mankato expanded the nearby Public Safety Center to include both police and fire stations.
“Fire Station 2, we no longer had a use for, and we were looking for increased response times in the downtown and west Mankato area,” Administrative Services Director Parker Skophammer told the City Council Monday. “Certainly that (goal) has been met.”
The more centralized location also enhanced ambulance service to homes southwest of Mankato and in lower North Mankato, along with providing more training space for ambulance crews and other emergency responders. (Gold Cross reached an agreement with North Mankato in 2009 to base an ambulance at that city’s Howard Drive fire station to improve response times in upper North Mankato.)
The original six-year lease, which expired three months ago, gave the ambulance service first rights to purchase the State Street building and included a provision for a reduction in the purchase price equal to 45% of the nearly $173,000 in lease payments made by Mayo over the years.
Mayo’s initial appraisal late last year suggested the property was worth $400,000 — $155,000 less than the city’s appraisal a few months later. During negotiations, the two sides agreed that a fair market value for the property was $537,000. The final price dropped to $416,000 because of the $79,000 credit for the lease payments and a $42,000 credit to reflect the depreciated value of building repairs and renovations primarily financed by Mayo in 2017, according to Skophammer.
The lot and building, built in 1960, had an assessed market value of $438,200, according to Blue Earth County tax records.
The proceeds of the sale will be targeted to an account used for tactical equipment purchases by the Department of Public Safety, Skophammer said.
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