City Council to look at plan for modern fire station

Plans to replace the Danville Fire Department’s downtown location with a modern headquarters/fire station will be considered at Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting, following a public hearing about the project.

Built in 1926, the current headquarters on Bridge Street has structural problems and cannot safely house the needed number of heavier, modern fire trucks. In addition, limited office space in the building for the fire chief’s and fire marshal’s headquarters has been outgrown.

City Council scheduled the replacement project for 2011, for a location large enough to ultimately also house the city’s Emergency Operation/911 Dispatch Center, which is currently housed in the basement of the Municipal Building.

The city has conducted a $125,000 needs assessment survey, which reported an 18,500 square-foot, four-bay fire station — located within one-quarter to one-half mile from the current headquarters — will fit the bill and allow expansion to include the Emergency Services operation.

Fire Chief David Eagle recently said several locations were being considered, but that he would not release specific information until a deal for the new site went through.

Now, according to a request from the city’s budget director, Cynthia Thomasson, an appropriate site has been chosen and City Council is being asked to use $700,000 from the General Fund Reserve Fund Balance to purchase the property.

Plans originally scheduled the project for 2011 through general obligation bond funding. Once that funding is secured, the $700,000 would be returned to the General Fund, according to Thomasson’s proposal.

Other items on the agenda include:

w Public hearing and vote on appropriating $5.2 million for Comprehensive Services Act programs, $1.36 million of which must come from the city’s General Fund.

w A vote on whether to approve revisions to a Memorandum of Understanding with the Science Museum of Virginia that will give the Danville Science Center a means to secure funding for improvements to the existing facility and the large format theater being added to the site.

w A vote on whether to back NextGen Aeronau-tics’ request to apply for Tobacco Commission grant funding. NextGen states that the next level in its unmanned flight project will provide four more jobs and ultimately lead to manufacturing the aircraft in this region.

Danville City Council meets the first and third Tuesday of each month, and the meetings are open to the public. The meetings begin at 7 p.m. on the fourth floor of the Municipal Building on Patton Street.

Thibodeau is a staff writer for the Danville Register & Bee.