Some Wilmington City Council members agree with the firefighters union and want to see a historic firehouse converted into a community center and museum, not sold to an apartment developer as the administration plans.

The city earlier this year accepted a $315,000 bid from the Montchanin Group for the building, which closed in 2015. The developer plans to convert the Gilpin Avenue property into six apartment units.

That bid was chosen over four other apartment proposals and the Wilmington Firefighters’ Association.

The bid must be approved by City Council. Montchanin's bid was accepted in the spring, but the mayor's office has not yet requested a vote.

Councilman Sam Guy on Thursday introduced legislation that would give the city permission to give the firehouse to the union, in an effort to persuade Purzycki to change his mind.

“If he refuses to do it, we can't make him to do it,” Guy said at a meeting of council’s community development and urban planning committee. “We can send a message of, ‘Don’t send us a resolution to give it to anybody else.’”

'Water Witch' fire station in Wilmington to be turned into apartments

Purzycki’s administration said council members do not have authority to give the mayor's office permission to take any action that the administration did not request.

The mayor’s chief of staff Tanya Washington wrote in a memo to committee chair Rysheema Dixon that the city must first determine what to do with a property, then ask the council for approval.

“The authority to determine the disposition of City-owned property rests with the administration,” Washington wrote.

Known as the Water Witch Steam Fire Engine Co. No. 5, the building located just blocks from Trolley Square is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was the last historic fire station in Wilmington when it closed.

John Rago, Purzycki’s deputy chief of staff for policy and communications, said before the meeting that the administration’s plans for the firehouse have not changed, though the city has yet to ask council for approval for the apartments.

“There hasn’t been anything done,” he said. “Nothing’s changed. We haven’t revisited the subject yet.”

The union last October asked Purzycki to give them the building to use for community meetings, children’s field trips, first-aid lessons, and as a union headquarters. When the city this year put out a request for potential buyers, the union agreed to bid.

“We were led to believe that the [request for proposals] wouldn't be based on money solely, that it would be based on what you could offer the community,” said Michael Stears, the union secretary.

Purzycki has said the decision was financial.

"We always have to be mindful that we have to pay bills for the city and we have to get property on the tax rolls," he told The News Journal in August.

Forty Acres neighbors have been supportive of the union’s plans, Stears said. He included a petition with over 400 signatures and letters from civic associations all over the city with his bid and said residents packed a community meeting in June opposing the apartment plan.

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Other council members on the committee spoke favorably of the union’s proposal and indicated they would support it before the full city council in December.

Stears called it “disheartening” to hear of the city’s plans to convert what he called a beloved piece of neighborhood history into apartments.

“If we're able to secure that building it gives us an opportunity to do for kids what it did for me, which is teach them that it's good to serve your community,” he said.

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Contact Jeanne Kuang at jkuang@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2476. Follow her on Twitter at @JeanneKuang.