HANCOCK — The Hancock City Council approved the sale of the former Neil’s Taxi building on Franklin Street for residential development at its meeting Wednesday.

“It’s been a long time coming, but it’s all good, I think,” said Mayor Paul LaBine. “It’s a nice improvement on a somewhere distressed part of a nice part of town, right off our downtown.”

Andrew Lahti Contracting purchased the property for $5,005. Lahti plans to build three 1,400-foot townhouses on the site. The sale passed 6-0 with one abstention.

After the council gave preliminary approval in Feburary, a repurchasing option for the city was added to the contract, said Councilor John Haeussler.

During the copper strike of 1913-14, the Franklin Avenue site had housed the Finnish Publishing Company, one of the main publishers during the strike, Hauessler said. The main meeting place for strike activity outside Calumet had been just north of there, Haeussler said.

“It’s a cool historical site, and it’s nice to see it being cleaned up and used productively,” he said.

A Michigan Technological University professor had also made suggestions for historical tie-ins with the property, Haeussler said.

A public hearing on the purchase Wednesday drew no comment.