Our Town

“Building a new fire station”
At tonight’s meeting of the Kernersville Board of Aldermen there will be a public hearing on the rezoning of a parcel of land at the corner of NC Highway 66 and Park Centre Drive for a proposed Kernersville fire station. The address of the site is 1180 Highway 66 South. The proposed site plan includes a brick fire station building, and two small buildings that will be used as training facilities.
The proposed building façade is mostly brick, with architectural details that are consistent with the Industrial Overlay Corridor standards that recent construction on Hwy 66 has followed. The main fire station building is proposed to be 19,119 square feet, and would include a meeting room and office space, in addition to sleeping quarters and a kitchen and dining area for the on-duty firefighters. The fire station is proposed to have a four bay garage, which would accommodate a ladder engine, a fire engine, and an ambulance.
The proposed site plan includes landscaping, and three driveways. These include an “exit only” driveway for fire engines to directly access Hwy 66, and two additional driveways off Park Centre Drive. A flashing light to warn motorists of the fire station is planned, and will be installed on Hwy 66, if approved by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. At their meeting last month, the Kernersville Planning Board reviewed the proposed zoning, site plan, and site plan conditions, and unanimously recommended the plan for adoption.
The proposed outdoor training structures will allow for fire and rescue training, and possibly EMS training. Kernersville firefighters do not have a training facility like the proposed new facility in our community, so they travel to other locations. Having the new capabilities for training will save time and travel expense.
If the rezoning and site plan is approved, a groundbreaking will be held later this year. Construction of the fire station should take approximately one year.
A site plan and details about the building are available on the Town of Kernersville agendas and meeting website, at https://toknc.civicweb.net by clicking Regular Meeting of the Board of Aldermen – 06 June 2017, and then scrolling down and clicking on the link for agenda item 1A, which is the public hearing for rezoning docket K-754.
As Kernersville continues to grow, with the area around the Novant Kernersville Medical Center and the VA Health Care Center expected to attract further new development, and with new housing being built in the Caleb’s Creek and Welden area, our town is preparing to improve response times to existing service areas, and help fire fighters quickly respond to calls for service in our town.
Dawn Morgan is the Mayor of Kernersville and writes a weekly column for the News.