By COLLIN BREAUX
What exactly should be done with the current Ponce de Leon Volunteer Fire and Rescue building, once it’s eventually replaced with a new facility?
Fire Chief Doug Remmel posed that question during a Town Council meeting on Thursday, Feb. 15, so that community leaders can start figuring out those plans sooner rather than later.
The fire station, which in its current state dates back to the late 70s/early 80s, will eventually be rebuilt in the same location with the help of $2 million in funding from the state.
“I’ve had a few folks ask me about purchasing the building,” Remmel said. “I don’t know if we just need to take bids for it, put it on government auction sites, however y’all would like to do it. Either way, if we sell it, I think that would be our best bet instead of trying to tear it down. Any of that money goes back into the department.”
Remmel said while PDL officials have time to think about the matter, it is something “we need to start thinking about and plan for.”
“Either way, once we put out the bids, however we do it, we need to have a (provision) that they have so much time from the time we get the go-ahead, when everything else is ready, to have that building taken down,” Remmel said. “Thirty days or whatever that they have to be ready when we say.”
Remmel said the new facility will be a larger building and must be in the same current spot since the appropriation required a facility “revitalization” at the same site.
“We’re going to be staying in the same open area that we’re in right now,” Remmel said.
The new building will also fix a “dip” in front of the current facility.
“That is part of the reason why that whole thing is going to be completely taken down,” Remmel said. “What we believe is happening is that building has been there so long that the material is decaying and causing it to sink.”
Publisher Carol Kent contributed to this story.
Hannah Collins 
GARETT VALCOURT 
Jim Saunders 