Chapel Hill Moving Forward with Public-Private Partnership for New Fire Station

The Chapel Hill Town Council is moving forward on developing a new fire station and four-story office building on East 54.

The new station and office building will replace old Chapel Hill Fire Station 2 on South Hamilton Road.

The land is currently owned by the town but part of the business agreement stipulates the developer, East West Partners, will help build the new fire station and will then be allowed to lease out the office space in the complex.

Previously, the town planned to sell the property to the developers and lease back space for the fire station. But under a new agreement, the town will maintain ownership of the property.

The new fire station is projected to cost $3 million in total. East West Partners will pay $1.75 million, $750,000 will come from town and $500,000 from the county, which will be locating some emergency services at the new facility.

Chapel Hill fire chief Matt Sullivan said the details of the development plan would be worked out by mid-summer.

“I continue to believe that this is a good business deal for the town, it meets multiple interests,” said Sullivan.

Sullivan said that if the final details of the agreement with East West Partners are not in the town’s favor, they have the ability to look for other developers.

“If it comes to the point where we can’t make this deal work, where it comes to the point that the money just doesn’t work out, then we’ll not do it,” said Sullivan.

According to Sullivan, the plan will increase the town’s tax base by $40,000.

Mayor Pam Hemminger was concerned about the number of parking spaces at the building and that the site could be near a future light rail station.

Bryson Powell, from East West Partners, said any lack of parking issue would fall on his company.

“At the end of the day, we have to be able to lease the building, and the building comes with X amount of parking spaces. And if we weren’t comfortable with the parking ratio, then we’d have a big problem on our hands because we wouldn’t be able to lease the space,” said Powell.

The council also approved rezoning the property on Monday.

If the plan goes forward with East West Partners, construction may begin by the fall. East West Partners hopes to bring in tenants to the office building by the start of 2018.