Borough of Chambersburg shares final design for public works campus

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — The Chambersburg Borough recently shared the final design for their new public works campus.

According to the Borough of Chambersburg, the Town Council had directed the Public Works Department to develop a project that would relocate and consolidate the operations of several Borough support activities, some of which have gone without having a permanent headquarters.

These departments include:

• Highway Department
• Engineering Department
• Sanitation Department
• Motor Equipment maintenance
• Water and Wastewater maintenance crew

On Wednesday, June 26, staff released a rendering to illustrate the layout of the new campus, which will be situated on Wayne Avenue, in the vicinity of South Front Street.

The new Public Works Campus is scheduled to open at some point in 2026.

The Borough of Chambersburg says that to make way for the project, they have been slowly acquiring land through negotiated purchases with private property owners. To date, the borough has reached an agreement with 14 of the 17 properties.

By the end of this summer, the borough will own all but three private homes on this block.

These property purchases include past acquisitions such as the former Wagner Supply Warehouse, the old Cold Storage building that has since been demolished, and 1332-1334 South Fourth Street.

“This is a transformational project for the neighborhood. In addition to Federal grant money which was designated from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for this project, Council has approved using the Borough utilities through their motor equipment rentals, and the Borough taxpayers together, will fund this community revitalization project to modernize Borough operations and relocate disparate departments into one modern energy-efficient facility for generations to come,” Borough Manager Jeffrey Stonehill said.

Moving forward, the goal laid out in their 2024 budget is to solicit a cost of constriction for the Town Council to consider with the adoption of their 2025 budget. The borough says that the Council already adopted a funding plan, which includes municipal bonds and a variety of sources to pay them off.

“It is a campus,” Jeffrey Stonehill explained. “A series of important facilities sharing one site, including a modern equipment maintenance building for over 150 pieces of motorized equipment, trash trucks, pickup trucks, electric utility trucks, vacuum trucks, excavators, fire trucks, and police cars, maintained by the employees of the Borough of Chambersburg.”

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