Eugene’s beloved Sam Bond’s Garage closed Dec. 1 after 30 years in the Whiteaker. Two and a half weeks later, the 107-year-old building sold.
The buyer was a Eugene businessman, Ian Hill, acting through his company, Bluegrass LLC. Lane County records show the sale closed Dec. 18. The sale has not previously been publicly reported.
Hill is not entirely unknown around here. He previously owned the popular counter-culture gas station SeQuential Biofuels, on McVay Highway, off Interstate 5. He sold that property last year for $2.5 million, according to the deed.
Hill bought the Sam Bond’s building for an undisclosed amount. County records put the building’s real market value at about $445,000, though the May listing price was closer to $1 million, which included business assets, presumably the name, equipment and inventory of Sam Bond’s.
The building is a squeaky tight 1,800 square feet.
Longtime Sam Bond’s owners Mark Jaeger, Bart Caridio and Todd Davis operated the business under a company called JDC LLC. Jaeger told Lookout Eugene-Springfield last year that the new owners planned to keep the space as a bar and venue.
On Jan 31, the Sam Bond’s Garage Instagram account announced the bar would reopen this summer. The post offered no details on ownership, plans, or whether the Sam Bond’s name will stick.
Hill couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the afternoon of Feb 1.
Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com.