Tracy City Council begins discussion about future of vacant downtown building
By Per Peterson
Now that the former liquor store building on South St. has been ruled out as a possible new home for a community center in Tracy, some are wondering what the future now holds for the building.
Tracy city council member Seth Schmidt, who has been an advocate for restoring the building and turning it into a community center since the sale of the Multi-Purpose Center in 2020, brought the subject up at last week’s council meeting.
“As long as the old liquor store property is no longer in conversation for a remodeled site for the new community center, I think we should get the ball rolling and talk about possibly selling the property,” Schmidt said last week. “And if we chose to do that, talk about the steps of what needs to be done to sell it.”
Schmidt said trying to sell or auction off the building as well as the items related to the old liquor store still inside are better options than continuing to let the building sit unoccupied, which it has since the liquor store operation moved to the highway in July 2020. Members of the city council this past March toured the building’s main level and basement, and the overall sentiment was that turning it into a community center was not a good option given its condition.
The building is currently home to equipment that was moved from the former MPC building to make room for The Plaid Moose owners to move in there. There is also other equipment inside the building associated with the old liquor store — items that weren’t transferred to the new building.
“We have an idea of the things we brought over from the Multi-Purpose Center and what was actually there originally,” Tracy City Administrator Erik Hansen said. “There wasn’t much left. And we would have to figure out where we would store what (from the Multi-Purpose Center) is in there.”
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.