A nearly 100-year-old firehouse that was decommissioned earlier this year will become the headquarters of a local architectural company after the Roanoke City Council approved the building's sale Monday.

Interactive Design Group, currently housed on Norfolk Avenue Southwest, will give the city $171,000 for Fire Station 3, located at Sixth Street and Rorer Avenue Southwest.

The site is assessed at $321,800, according to city records.

The business plans to renovate both the two-story building's interior and exterior, according to city officials.

Fire Station 3 was built in 1909 and became one of the city's busiest fire stations, serving large swaths on the western edge of downtown, according to firefighters who once worked there. It closed quietly in May, when the city dedicated a new fire station on Franklin Road.

At the time, Fire-EMS Chief David Hoback said the building was in bad shape.

"It's a piece of city property that we no longer had a municipal use for," said Mayor Nelson Harris, adding that the city had "a number of offers" from prospective buyers.

Nobody spoke during a public hearing on the sale, which council members approved unanimously. Contrast that with Fire Station 1, which drew outrage from some firefighters and others after the city moved its personnel and equipment to the new station.

Today, Fire Station 1, which was built in 1906, is technically still open, although it is mostly empty.

Also Monday, the council approved a conservation easement protecting 7,000 of the 12,000 acres at Carvins Cove Natural Reserve. The easement, the largest in Virginia, restricts development on the landscape and ridges around Carvins Cove reservoir, one of the area's primary sources of drinking water.

The council also reached a consensus on ways to cut the cost of the renovation of the Market Garage on Church Avenue.

By reducing the height of a parapet from 14 feet to 4 feet and by the replacing some of the materials, the city stands to save $1.1 million on the project, cutting the price tag to $6.5 million, said Matt Messick, an architect with the North Carolina company of Walter Robbs Callahan & Pierce, which is handling the renovation.