For owner Mike Ankeny, Friday is a little bittersweet.

This Friday, the Budget Oil gas station off of Oakland Avenue E. and Fourth Street NW. will shut down. The property was sold by Ankeny to the city of Austin earlier this year, as it’s in the Cedar River flood plain and could be used for flood mitigation.

“I’ve been there a long time,” Ankeny said.

The gas station was the first business Ankeny ever bought, right out of high school, in 1976.

While the store’s merchandise will go to other stores Ankeny owns, much of the shelving and infrastructure will be city property, free to be auctioned off or destroyed when the city presumably tears it down.

“We’ve got a week, probably, to vacate out of there,” Ankeny said.

Ankeny said the time was right, given the current economic climate, to sell the property as the city might not make such a good offer again. The city offered $293,000 and the City Council approved the purchase in April.

Ankeny also sold The Beer Depot in Austin to Craig Stickfort, owner of Cheers Liquor in Albert Lea, in May. Stickfort renamed the Austin business Cheers Liquor.