Crossville Closes On Interstate Drive Property For New Fire Station

Crossville closed Tuesday on land to build a new fire station in order to keep up with the city’s expanding population.

Crossville has been exploring the idea of moving the fire station to Interstate Drive for some time. Crossville City Manager Greg Wood said that the city hopes the new location will also cut down on emergency response time.

“It’s really a good location,” Wood said. “Especially when we get the Interstate Drive project done as well, we expect to see more development in that area as well. So it will be important, we like to have a three-minute response time in the city.”

Wood said the new location would help serve the expanded Highway 127 area. Wood said design work on the station is well underway, with the chance to bid the building in the spring.

Wood said that the current station is facing structural problems that also motivate the location change.

“It leaks a bit to put it kindly,” Wood said. “So it’s time to either re-build there or move on to somewhere that’s going to provide better service and we think this will do the trick.”

Crossville Fire Chief Chris South said in July that the new station would be in an industrial area where the department receives a high number of calls. South said the natural gas well on the Interstate property could also be used for fire training via natural gas fires.

Wood said it would also be more strategic placement.

“The RV Gardens over off of North Side which is this premiere development has just been growing constantly,” Wood said. “We really had an overlap between Station One and Station Two. By moving Station Two further to the north and where we’ve put it, it’s going to get us a whole lot better response time to all things that are developing on the north end of the city.”

Previously Chief South said in July that after Station 2 is relocated, there is a future plan to have a third fire station opened.