PACC-10 TV moving into old Goldsboro Fire Station
By Anessa Myers
Published in News on September 28, 2008 12:21 AM
As the white paint started to go up on exterior walls of the old Goldsboro Fire Station on the corner of Ash and Center streets, and green paint went up on the letters in "Goldsboro Fire Department," residents around town started talking.
Many sat in B&G Grill or drove by Ash Street, wondering who was fixing the old building -- and what would later go in it.
There was the name of a company floating around, a company that owned the building -- Ladder 39 -- but no one seemed to know who owned the company.
After years of contractors, painters, electricians, plumbers, cable technicians and more walking through and around the 70-year-old building, the landmark will soon have a new occupant.
Sitting in his current office off of Claiborne Street Thursday, Bobby Parker said he was wondering, too, along the way -- not about who was renovating it, but when he would be able to move his business, Parker Advertising which includes PACC-10 TV, there.
"We started renovations in April 2006," he said.
It turns out that he owns the building.
Parker hopes the wait will be over real soon.
"We will hopefully be broadcasting from there next week," he said.
There were several holdups through the years, including holes in the roof that were so big "a few cars could drive through them," he said.
But the building stood tall, he said, and didn't crumble inward.
To be closer to events and meetings his business covered, Parker wanted to move his operation, studios and all, to a venue downtown.
There just wasn't a building with as much character as the old fire station, he said, nor one he liked better.
"It's a very solid, great looking building," he said.
Plus, he said, the building holds so many fond memories to people in the community.
It served as the headquarters for the Goldsboro Fire Department from 1939 to 1976.
"I had several people come up to me or come to the building and reminisce," he said. "A lot of the firemen have dads that were firemen there. ... When you spend your days in a job like that, where you never know if it could be your last, there is a bond that forms with the people you work with. And that building becomes a part of them.
"If someone were to tear that building down, it would be like tearing a piece of their heart out. ... I think people are just happy that it's being preserved."
Part of the character of the building, Parker says, lays in the knowledge that those men worked there for years.
"The poles are still there," he said. "And upstairs are the bunk rooms where they used to sleep."
Parker will move his offices into the downstairs portion of the building, but isn't quite sure what he will do with the upstairs.
He says that the bunk rooms are perfect little offices for people who are one-man businesses like lawyers or salesmen, and he will later turn them into that if the market calls for that.
"I have even had people come and ask if there were going to be apartments up there," he said.
But he doesn't believe apartments would fit too well above his offices.
Until he figures out what to do with the upstairs, he will finish packing up his things on Claiborne Street and start settling into the bottom of his Ash Street location.