Former Iten Chevrolet building 226 Central Av., Osseo
Type: Redevelopment Size: 4,750 square feet Year built: 1950
Developer: Iten Garage LLC
A local real estate owner has struck an agreement with Osseo to purchase and refurbish a one-story building in the suburb's downtown that was once home to the Iten Chevrolet car dealership.
The 62-year-old structure at 226 Central Av. was a showroom for Iten until the 1960s, when the dealership moved to a more spacious site near then-new Interstate 694 at Brooklyn Boulevard in Brooklyn Center.
For some 20 years after, the building housed a medical clinic and was eventually donated to the city by the Iten family. It has been vacant for more than two years as city officials debated what to do with it, Osseo City Administrator Jeffrey Dahl said.
"We considered everything from using it as a police station to tearing it down to putting up a parking lot for downtown businesses," he said. "Ultimately our economic development authority decided to sell it for $85,000. It has a value of $300,000, but it will take $200,000 in rehab work to make the shell usable."
The winning bidder was Osseo real estate entrepreneur Daniel Spanier and his Iten Garage. Spanier, who owns the nearby First Avenue Commons multi-tenant building, has proposed rehabbing the 4,750-square-foot building into an auto-themed restaurant.