Farmville hosting groundbreaking ceremony for new fire station, pending loan from county

FARMVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - A groundbreaking ceremony will be held next week for the new Farmville Fire Department. This comes as the town awaits loan approval from Pitt County to complete facility construction.

The ceremony for the new fire station will be on Monday, September 29th, at the corner of May Boulevard and West Horne Avenue.

Following years of talks surrounding a new fire department, Town Manager Justin Oakes says it’s about time.

“This is a project that the town has been working on, really going back around 5 years now,” Oakes said. “We’re going to break ground with phase one.”

This comes amid uncertainty as Farmville awaits a $4 million loan approval from Pitt County commissioners. The request is to support the roughly $7 million project. The county already denied their request for a grant back in March.

The town had been awarded $3.7 million in federal grants to rebuild the fire station. The Local Government Commission approved their request to borrow $2 million from a bank earlier this month; however, that loan will only cover phase one. The town needs another loan for phase two.

The work for each phase includes:

Phase 1: Five-bay garage large enough to house an aerial truck, radio room, gear storage, decontamination room, decontamination shower, two restrooms, tool/SCBA room, and equipment storage room.

Phase 2: Offices for the chief and his officers, conference room, training room, fitness room, and dorm quarters.

Either way, residents say they’re happy the project is getting started.

“It feels wonderful,” said Farmville resident Audrey Vines. “They’ve been working on it forever, because I’ve been here forever.”

Their current facility is 97 years old and can’t fit an aerial truck inside. Firefighters say new businesses, like potential apartment complexes, would require multiple stories. If there’s a fire on a higher floor, mutual aid would need to be called for their aerial. They say this stops many businesses from building in Farmville.

A member of the town’s chamber of commerce says the new facility would fix that.

“Fire safety is such an important thing for a business, for housing, for all of the things you just mentioned,” said Farmville Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Millissa Alexander. “It also helps with insurance rates and things like that. It is a recruiting tool for us.”

Oakes told us that if commissioners approve the $4 million loan the town asks for, raised taxes won’t be required to pay it back. He says that it will be paid back through Farmville’s general fund.

Oakes said he would rather obtain the loan from the county than from the bank. He said the county loan would allow project completion to happen all at once, rather than the two-phase approach. A bank loan would lead to the project being built in phases, prolonging completion.

Pitt County commissioners plan to meet again to discuss matters on October 6th.