Polk County buys land just north of Bartow to replace Highland City fire station
A four-acre site along Smith Lane near U.S. 98 north of Bartow was bought for a fire station by the Polk County Commission on Tuesday, part of the county's plan to replace the current Highland City fire station within the next two years.
Commissioners unanimously agreed to purchase the land for $475,000 from Lakeland Regional Health Systems Inc. during a board meeting at the County Administration Building in Bartow.
The site on Smith Lane is a pasture just south of Spessard Holland Elementary School and the short lane is connected by E.F. Griffin Road to the west and U.S. 98 to the east. The Cedar Ridge Road cul-de-sac off E.F. Griffin Road is several acres away from the property’s southern border.
The new fire station would sit roughly a quarter mile away from U.S. 98.
The new land in unincorporated Bartow is already zoned for institutional use. The county will construct intersection improvements and wastewater and water infrastructure improvements to the station, according to a county real estate report.
The parcel is surrounded by nearly 90 acres owned by LRH since 2015, primarily to the south and east, county property records show. The 18.6 acres between the school and along the north side of Smith Lane is owned by Polk County.
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The LRH bought the land fronting U.S. 98 for $7.5 million for future use as a medical complex, The Ledger reported in 2015. The land was part of an estimated 500-acre site south of Smith Lane along U.S. 98.
That land was owned by Silver Capital Florida, which had proposed building an active-adult community there in the early 2000s. But the plan was opposed by residents along E.F. Griffin Road because the development would destroy the rural nature of their neighborhood, The Ledger reported.
Fire and paramedic vehicles will leave the new station via Smith Lane to respond to calls. The current Fire Station No. 28 at 4101 Clubhouse Road in Highland City is smaller than the new one and sits behind a post office. To its rear, the station borders a Publix-anchored shopping center.
According to Polk County’s real estate services administrator R. Wade Allen, the county currently has 12 stations either completed or in the works. Each new station has an average cost of $5.5 million to build, and that funding comes from the county’s capital improvement fund, named the Community Investment Program.
In the county’s first phase of fire station construction, stations completed in 2021 were in Kathleen, Frostproof and Winston Creek. A station in Loughman opened in 2022.
Stations currently in design, permitting and bidding stages include: Eaton Park, Moore Road, Masterpiece and Watkins Road, Allen said. The Smith Lane station would be among the third phase of the plans to open new fire stations, including others in Lake Caloosa, Polk City and Eagle Lake.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County buys land for Highland City fire station replacement
