THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 27, 1995 TAG: 9509270464
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
The City Council is moving ahead again on its stalled fire station project, in two directions at once.
Where more than a month ago it seemed the council had rejected all its options for a second station, the council voted Tuesday to do a soil study on one property and left open the possibility of rebuilding its defunct station downtown.
A divided council approved the $2,000 soil borings on Knobbs Creek Drive - city property identified and rezoned last spring for the expressed purpose of building a new fire station.
The council refused to initiate that study when it came up in August, with several members reversing field and saying they wanted the second station to remain downtown.
Those same members - Lloyd Griffin, Anita Hummer and Myrtle Rivers - voted against the soil study at Knobbs Creek Drive at a special meeting Tuesday.
Councilmen David P. Bosomworth, W.L. ``Pete'' Hooker and Jimi Sutton voted to do the test, which will show whether a station can be built on the land.
Mayor H. Rick Gardner, who has steadfastly supported the Knobbs Creek Drive site a mile north of downtown since a council committee recommended it in May, broke the tie by voting for the study.
Griffin remained committed to keeping fire equipment downtown. After a visit with engineers and architects at the site of the crumbling Elizabeth Street station, he proposed commissioning a study on ways to rebuild it.
The council agreed to wait until its Oct. 2 meeting to vote on the second study, after the architect firm Dove-Knight and Associates provides a cost estimate.
Griffin maintains that the downtown station can be rebuilt for less than the estimated $600,000 it would cost to construct a new building at Knobbs Creek Drive.
The Elizabeth Street station was deemed unsafe about a year ago. Pilings in the wall separating the living quarters and equipment bay are deteriorating, structural engineer Kevin M. Roomsburg said Tuesday.
``My gut feeling is this building is reaching the end of its useful life,'' Roomsburg told Griffin and a couple of other council members visiting the old station before the meeting.
The council appointed a committee to find a new fire station site last year after learning about the condition of the Elizabeth Street station. After months of looking, the committee settled on the Knobbs Creek Drive property.
A public hearing was held on rezoning the property so that a fire station could be built there. No one spoke in opposition to the project. Soil borings were the next step, until council members halted the process last month.
Absent from Tuesday's meeting were council members A.C. Robinson Jr. and Dorothy Stallings. by CNB