Tuesday, September 24, 2024–11:00 a.m.

-David Crowder, WRGA News-

According to Rome City Manager Sammy Rich, the price tag for the site at 2660 Cedartown Highway is $1,750,000, which will be paid for using special purpose, local option sales tax funds.

“This facility is roughly 11,000 square feet, has multiple bays, including wash bay, and is 19 almost 20 acres of real estate,” Rich said. “So it meets every need we have for our fire department.”

The current site on North Avenue has outlived its usefulness.

It’s a vintage 1948 facility, and suffice to say it’s very inadequate to serve the needs of our fire department,” Rich told the commission.  “We have a fleet of about 60 vehicles that always need some sort of maintenance, repair, updates and to be worked in general.”

So, city officials started to look for a solution. Money was included in the 2017 SPLOST to replace the current facility.

“We initially thought we would be able to expand on North Avenue,” Rich said. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to utilize some of the transit real estate as we had intended.”

The city anticipates closing on the new site on or around October 23.