Taking a step toward a second new fire station in the city, the North Little Rock City Council approved the $137,500 purchase Monday of property to become part of Burns Park.
The property at Brown Drive, just south of MacArthur Drive, is described in the legislation as "generally located east of the Burns Park baseball fields." The sellers are Joe and Mary Lou Wickliffe of North Little Rock. The purchase is to come out of the city's general fund.
City Council members voted 7-0 for the purchase. Council Member Maurice Taylor was absent.
Purchasing the property to add to Burns Park is necessary so the city can later relocate Fire Station No. 8, 6550 MacArthur Blvd., in the Amboy area to about 3 acres just inside the park and across from the Burns Park Hospitality House on Military Drive, Mayor Joe Smith said. The Wickliffe property is 6 to 7 acres, Smith told the council.
"To do that, we have to take property out of the park and put property into the park," Smith said.
Federal Outdoor Recreation Grant funds used to develop Burns Park restrict the park's use to outdoor facilities. By adding the Wickliffe land into the park, in effect trading it for a piece of existing parkland, the city is released from that obligation.
"It butts up against the ballpark and is probably a good addition to the ballpark anyway," Smith said before the meeting. "But we're going to use those acres to mitigate the 2 to 3 acres we're going to use for the new fire station. So that's why we're buying this."
Putting a new station on city parkland also saves money on a new station, Smith said. The purchase of property in March to build a new Station 6 in the Levy area cost $356,000.
"For practical purposes, we look at this as spending $137,500 to mitigate the 3 acres there in Burns Park where we're going to sit Station 8," Smith said.
North Little Rock voters approved a 1 percentage-point sales tax increase in an August 2007 special election to be split as a one-half percent permanent tax for the general fund and a one-half percent tax for five years for capital improvements. Projected revenue from the temporary tax includes $10 million over the five years to renovate or rebuild the city's 11 fire stations.
Smith previously has mentioned his plan to relocate the Amboy station from further west on MacArthur Drive to the site inside Burns Park. The move would put the station south of railroad tracks, giving firetrucks faster access to Interstate 40 to provide support in other areas, Smith said.
"That particular unit can support the Maumelle Boulevard station," Smith said, referring to the Station 4 near the western end of the city. "[Trucks] could also jump on the interstate and come down to Levy quickly or even to Baring Cross a lot quicker. It's also there to serve Amboy and all that area through there."
Fire Chief Gerald Tucker said Monday that the move would increase response times for the fire station in 95 percent of its district coverage area.
Built in 2002, Station 8 is the city's most recently built fire station, Tucker said. North Little Rock opened Station 11 on U.S. 65 on the city's eastern side in October 2015, but that was done through obtaining an existing house and garage.
Station 8 was located at its current Amboy site when city officials anticipated annexing areas west of there, Smith said. But residents there balked at coming into the city.
"It's a little displaced where it is," he said.
Metro on 04/09/2019