Buncombe County Plans to Convert McCormick Place Building Into EMS Station

The former General Services building at 40 McCormick Place, on the edge of downtown Asheville near Mission Hospital, would become a regional Emergency Medical Services hub under a proposal Buncombe County officials advanced March 30.

The site's location is central to the county's case for the conversion. An ambulance station in the hospital district would cut travel time on downtown runs, give dispatchers a centrally positioned unit during surge periods, and establish a base for mutual aid coordination with neighboring municipalities. Without a station in the urban core, EMS crews responding to incidents near Mission Hospital must travel from outlying positions, a coverage gap county planners identified through repeated facility assessments.

Buncombe County's 911 medical call volume has grown sharply over recent years, stretching ambulance coverage and pushing response times in some areas. Rather than purchase land and construct a new facility, county planners flagged 40 McCormick Place as the faster and lower-cost path forward. The county already owns the building, and the FY23 facility assessment earmarked funding for design and construction at the site. Procurement postings that followed sought architectural and engineering design services for the adaptive reuse, meaning the project moved through multiple budget cycles before advancing to this stage.

Renovation costs, a construction timeline, and a staffing plan have not been publicly detailed. Those specifics, along with any target response time benchmarks and call volume projections the county intends to meet, are expected to emerge through formal design work and subsequent commission hearings required under county procurement rules. How the county will track and report performance outcomes publicly remains an open question heading into that process.

The conversion will also require engineering solutions for traffic circulation near the hospital campus, ambulance ingress and egress logistics, and on-site accommodations for on-duty crews.

Buncombe County's longer-range emergency services strategy, covering additional station siting, equipment upgrades, and staff recruitment, is expected to come before commissioners in public budget hearings in the months ahead.