Turning Palm Coast Fire Station 22 into a usable building for the city, once the fire station itself shifts a third of a mile down the road, would cost $1.1 million, architects and engineers told the Palm Coast City Council this morning.
The cost of razing the station is not clear, but it’s the second option the architects and the city’s parks and recreation director submitted to the council today, if the parking problem at the Palm Coast Community Center across the street is to be addressed. The center has a deficit of over 100 parking spaces, and at times causes potential users to turn around and leave, the parks director said.
The two options were presented as part of an assessment of the station, but with surprisingly much additional information lacking for council members to make a decision: the cost of razing the building is unknown. The cost of building a parking lot is unknown. The effects on the overhead canopy of building a parking lot are unknown. The cost of operating the building post-fire station is unknown. Even the $1.1 million estimate of repairing the building turned out to be guesswork. “I don’t want to be held to 1.1 million because it could be $2 million depending on what we ended up wanting to use that building for,” Construction Management and Engineering Division Director Carl Cote said.
A clear majority of the council–Theresa Pontieri, Nick Klufas and Cathy Heighter–doesn’t want the building razed. Council member Ed Danko is more comfortable with the idea, and Mayor David Alfin wants to put the question on the next ballot.
“That’s a lot of money to rehabilitate this building,” Danko said. “I am interested though, in knowing how much it will cost to tear it down and put up a parking lot. I’ve got to assume it’ll be less money than rehabilitating this building but I don’t know for certain.”
Razing the building would be an affront to a strong and possibly sizeable constituency in the city that wants the building preserved and made part of the city’s historical heritage. Station 22 was the first fire station in what would later become a city. It was first operated by county volunteers, before Palm Coast’s incorporation. Its continued use as a fire station is out of the question, but its advocates, including members of the Palm Coast Historical Society, see the building as a museum or as a city facility with some historical aspects–just not as a parking lot.
That constituency is slowly being overrun by new arrivals in a city that now counts itself among the 20 fastest growing in the nation, and people settling in disparate neighborhoods, from the W, P, R, E and F Sections to Seminole Woods or Sawmill Creek along U.S. 1 (where there is neither a saw mill nor a creek), some of whom may have no attachment or understanding and even less affection for an old building that, even architecturally, leaves a bit to be desired as a handsome landmark. Then again, a recent arrival to the city addressed the council this morning as a Historical Society member who also supports the building’s preservation.
It’s Station 22’s legacy rather than its aesthetics that may pull at its advocates’ strings, though its surrounding canopy also adds to its charms–a canopy Council member Theresa Pontieri would not want compromised just to plug in a new parking lot. Whether the canopy would ne compromised is another question the architects could not yet answer.
But its further use as a re-purposed building would leave the city possibly spending $1.1 million and looking for a new use, while falling short of its goal to solve the Community Center parking crunch. Alternately, some council members see that kind of money getting spent only if it’s privately raised.
“I’m in favor of saving Fire Station. I know I know it will be costly,” Pontieri said. “I’m looking at our city right now as a city where we’ve got a lot of residents who have been here a long time. They’re proud Palm Coast residents and they want a welcoming center. They want something that’s really going to kind of be a namesake in the community. And I think that’s very important, especially as we are looking to kind of not be so much a hidden gem anymore.”
She cited the recently launched joint discussions with Flagler Beach and other cities and the county–intended to diversify the countywide attractions for visitors–as another reason for a “welcoming center” at the station, though the proposal might take the Tourist Development Council by surprise: that council is crafting plans to open the county’s welcome center on State Road 100, just east of Old Kings Road.
Council member Nick Klufas, citing his “allegiance to the Historical Society,” also favors preserving the building. “These parking lots are awesome, but, no BS, in the future, parking lots are going to be a thing that aren’t really what we’re concerned with,” Klufas said. “You’ll tell your car to go park [itself] 10 years from now.”
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Alfin doesn’t want to risk unnecessarily alienating the preservationists. “You will almost never hear me say this,” Alfin told his council colleagues, “but based on the historical roots of the building, based on the need for the community center for more parking and on and on and on, this is one of those very, very rare times that I’m thinking that this almost becomes a ballot question, because you all may disagree with me, but I have a hard time making a decision on behalf of the community and not really understanding their gut feeling about all of this.”
Danko liked the idea, though he, too, anticipates that the city’s changing demographics may decide the issue. “While I know there’ll be voters that have been here for a long period of time, new voters may not want to spend that amount of money,” he said. “So I’m not opposed to that idea.”
The community center has 109 parking spaces. The city is recommending a minimum of 250 spaces, a difference of 141 spaces. There are 15 existing spaces around the fire station. An additional 70 could be gained with the building still in place, and another 42 would be gained if the building were razed. That adds up to 127 spaces. Those could be available by the end of 2025. If the building is rehabilitated and preserved, the city could still net 70 new parking spaces.
The city is not aware of nearby lots for sale that the city could acquire for additional parking, with the exception of an unwieldy option south of the existing parking spot, across the canal. That vacant lot has a lot of historic oaks on it. They would have to be preserved. The lot would yield only 42 spaces, and acquiring the land “would have been extremely expensive per spot,” Cote said. “So that was ruled out.”
The city is building the Southern Recreation Center by the city’s tennis courts off Belle Terre Parkway. That center may alleviate some of the events crunch at the Community Center, but its rooms won’t be as large and will not accommodate, say, weddings, as the Community Center does.
Then Greg Johnston, a member of the Historical Society, threw a wrench in the discussion when he announced to the council that he owns 56 acres near Club House Drive on Palm Coast Parkway that he said could be part of the discussion.
The new Fire Station 22 is to be built closer to Colbert Lane, and to open at the end of 2025. The 2,900 square foot station, built in 1977, “no longer adequately addressed the functional and firefighter health safety issues associated with the building,” architect Eric Gebo said. And the design for the new station will be completed by the middle of next year.
The old building is showing its age, literally: its cracking in parts, with possible termite damage above the current sleeping quarters. The foundation is solid, but the weight of fire trucks has caused some settling in parts, some cracking in others. The windows are antiquated and non-energy efficient. The roof needs to be replaced. The bathrooms could use sprucing up.
The plumbing is at the tail end of its useful life. The band-aiding of piping done in more recent years would have to be redone. The air conditioning system was replaced in 2016, giving it only a few more years. The building’s entire wiring needs redone–the grounding system may not be meeting code and there is no fire-alarm system, which is ironic for a fire department building–as does the lighting system. The building’s internet wiring is in better shape.
There’s only one significant historic tree on the site–and a sewer lift station. As it is, the building can be used for a small business or similar operations, including a welcome center.
“We all should keep an open mind in both directions here,” Danko said toward the end of the discussion. “Because we do want to honor our fire station or firemen in our history. But we also do need parking. We’re kind of between, you know, a tree and its bark on the situation, as they say.”
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