Looking to Consolidate Buildings - not organizations in Northern New York (trying to get ideas)

Our town is looking at building a building that will house the town’s fire and rescue squads. Currently these organizations are separate entities in separate locations. I would like to explore the possibility of forming a corporation that will handle the building of the structure. The reason behind this is because we will have three separate entities involved with this construction; the fire district, the fire department, and the rescue squad. With three entities it would be difficult to have a “lead” agency and still keep all transactions transparent. My intentions on forming a Corporation would be a place that we could funnel construction money through and be able to represent all stake holders equally. The fire department would disperse money and the rescue squad would disperse money. Intent is to have an oversight of construction and once the building is occupied we would then have an “owner” to whom the fire district would also lease from, this lease agreement would be a lease to purchase, and after the loan was paid then the “corporation” would dissolve, and any remaining assets would be equally distributed between the fire department and the rescue squad. Building maintenance, heat, water and sewer would be the responsibility of the “corporation” who would hold the insurance on the building during its ownership and collect lease payments. Because of the cost of construction the corporation would be in existence for the length of the loan that will need to be taken out after the one time payments from the rescue squad and fire department.

The corporation would be formed of two stake holders of the fire department, fire district, rescue squad, and four community representatives. The community representatives would be one member of the school board, one member of the senior citizens group, one member of the agriculture community, and one other member at large. This would be a group of 10. Meeting minutes would be made public and open to the public.


Does this seem possible, does anyone have suggestions including an entire other way of going about this??

We are at the start of the planning stages.


Updated on 12-21-2008: I have had no replies, maybe this is too vague? If anyone has any experience in consolidating buildings and even services in rural areas (does not have to be in New York) please share your experience in how you did this, what road blocks you came across, how the public reacted, how you "sold" it to the public etc. Anything would be helpful. This is for all volunteer department, rescue squad, located in Northern New York in a very small town of almost 2000 people. Stats: Squad responds to about 160 calls per year and the FD answers about 70. Squad membership is about 9 and FD is about 40 +/-. The perception that I have is that we are respected by the community and they would be supportive of something that would improve responses. As in all areas money will be the limiting factor. If anyone also has some plans/pictures for modest stations that they have used or seen used that seem to make efficient use of space, is designed around functionality and not looks, and uses practical materials (not a tajmahal) that would be also very helpful.

Here are some stats about our town:
As of 2007, Madrid's population is 1,837 people. Since 2000, it has had a population growth of 0.49 percent.

The median home cost in Madrid is $103,500. Home appreciation the last year has been -3.35 percent.

Compared to the rest of the country, Madrid's cost of living is 21.79% Lower than the U.S. average.

Madrid public schools spend $8,317 per student. The average school expenditure in the U.S. is $6,058. There are about 15 students per teacher in Madrid.

The unemployment rate in Madrid is 5.20 percent(U.S. avg. is 4.60%). Recent job growth is Negative. Madrid jobs have Decreased by 2.31 percent
from:http://www.bestplaces.net/city/Madrid-New_York.aspx




Thanks

and again we are at the very beginning stages trying to lay the proper groundwork so that this will be perceived positively down the road.