Former Fall River police station going back up for auction with 2 other properties

FALL RIVER — The Bedford Street police station, the former Nu-Chrome facility and a commercial property on King Philip Street will go on the auction block Tuesday.

“At the site visit, we had interested people at all three of them,” said Matthew Thomas, the city’s tax title attorney.

The auction of all three properties will be held at 10 a.m. in the Government Center atrium.

Thomas said a company doing business in the city and looking to expand has shown interest in the former Nu-Chrome property in the industrial park.

After trying for years to recoup back taxes that reached upwards of $1,746,177 — just over $1 million for interest — the city foreclosed on the Nu-Chrome property in 2012.

The property was deemed contaminated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection, and will be sold as a Brownfield site.

The suggested minimum bid is $822,000.

It’s been a battle to sell off the blighted, more than 100-year-old former police station. The property has been surrounded by a chain-link fence for years to protect pedestrians from falling materials.

Mayor Jasiel Correia II hired a real estate consultant for $24,000 to sell the building soon after taking office in 2016, but to no avail.

The property will also be auctioned as a Brownfield with a minimum bid of $60,630, the money owed by the former owner before the city took the property back in tax title.

City Administrator Cathy Ann Viveiros said two entities have expressed interest in the property recently.

A former restaurant at 755 King Philip St. is also on the auction block. Viveiros said one interested party is an abutter.

Viveiros said that the city has been candid with potential buyers about the environmental challenges with Nu-Chrome and the former police station.

Bidders will be required to show proof that they have sufficient funding to complete any projects, Viveiros said.

Email Jo C. Goode at jgoode@heraldnews.com.