City, college make land swap official

Officials from Western Piedmont Community College, the City of Morganton and Morganton Public Safety met on Monday, March 4^th, for a small ceremony to sign the deeds for the land transfer in which property on Vine Arden Road, belonging to the City of Morganton, was exchanged for property on Patrick Murphy Drive, belonging to WPCC.

The City of Morganton has plans to construct a new, state-of-the-art public safety station on Patrick Murphy Drive to help serve the residents, institutions and businesses on the eastern and southern sides of Morganton. This facility would be particularly significant in improving fire response times in those areas. WPCC has plans to build a new and expanded emergency services training center on Vine Arden Road that will facilitate fire and other emergency response training. This will replace the current facility on Coal Chute Road.

The need for a new emergency services training center emerged as a result of the Broughton District Master Development Plan which has the purpose of attracting public and private investments in the 800 acre district.

Sally Sandy, City of Morganton Manager said, “This land swap is very exciting for both the city and the college. It is great to have a partnership where we help each other move forward with projects that will benefit our community.”