A South Carolina tire retailer is the new owner of the piece of land on U.S. Highway 70 in Hickory that was once the location of the city’s infamous sinkhole.
The Hickory City Council approved the $500,000 sale of the 1.66-acre property to Rims USA earlier this month. The sale comes four months after a Hickory company, CPM Enterprise LLC, made a $250,000 offer the land.
Rims USA then made a bid for $300,000. CPM countered that with a bid for $314,950, which was $100 below the amount they would have needed to offer for a qualifying bid.
In April, the city council voted to reject the qualifying high bid from Rims USA and to keep the bidding process going.
Hickory City staff had recommended the action by arguing that CPM made a good faith error in calculating the bid, adding also that continuing the bidding could yield a higher price for the land. Ultimately, Rims USA won out with a bid that was double that of the initial offer in February.
The property in question gained notoriety in 2002 when a sinkhole opened in the parking lot of Buffalo’s Southwest Café. A yellow Corvette famously fell into the hole around the time it first formed.
Sinkholes would be become a recurrent problem at the site for years. The city ultimately took over the land and finished repairs in 2018 as part of a $4.8 million partnership with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Earlier this year, Mayor Hank Guess said city leaders received assurances the land is safe to build on while Councilwoman Jill Patton said she felt confident the site was suitable for building following the repairs.
Story: Kevin Griffin-Hickory Daily Record