CHARLESTOWN — The Charlestown Fire District is planning to build a new Cross Mills Fire station on a two-acre vacant site on Old Post Road located just a stone’s throw from the existing station.

The new station, which will cost an estimated $2 million — a price that will be passed on to the district’s taxpayers — is needed because the existing station is too old, too small and in other ways inadequate to meet the fire company’s needs, Cross Mills Fire Chief Donald Rathbone said.

The bigger size of fire trucks these days and new fire safety regulations have made the existing station outdated, said Rathbone, noting that portions of the building date back to 1938.

The decision to build a new one follows a feasibility study by the Maguire Group that considered renovating the existing station, among other options, but concluded that a completely new station was the most cost efficient way for the district to meet its needs, Rathbone said.

The $2 million price tag is a rough estimate of the project’s costs, said Rathbone and John Bilotta, chairman of a building committee that is overseeing the project. The exact price, which voters must approve, won’t be known until plans for the station are finalized and approved by the town, they said.

“It’s still fairly preliminary,” said Rathbone.

“We need another fire station, but we want to be fair to the taxpayers,” he said.

The site of the new station, which the district purchased last year for approximately $400,000, according to Rathbone, falls into an area zoned ‘traditional village district.’ Plans for the station, which have been submitted to the Planning Commission, show a onestory building measuring 9,998-square-feet with 36 parking spaces.

The station will have a front entrance and three garage bay doors facing Old Post Road and will be constructed with materials in keeping with the look of an old New England village. In a memo to the Planning Commission, Town Planner Ashley Hahn called the look of the building, as designed by architect Richard S. Lawrence of Connecticut, “aesthetically pleasing and in keeping a traditional New England style,” Hahn wrote.

“The applicant is aware that they are located in an Historic District and is proposing to use architectural asphalt shingles for the roofing with a combination of brick and cement board for siding with a white painted trim,” the memo states.

“I think it looks quite handsome,” said Bilotta, a volunteer member of the Cross Mills Fire Dept. for the past 25 years.

Bilotta said that the new station had to be located in approximately the same geographic location as the old one to meet the town’s fire fighting needs and to retain the station’s volunteer base.

“You can’t go where the land is cheapest,” he said.

When plans for the station are at least 75 percent finalized, and the estimated cost of the project is more firm, the fire district will hold a public meeting, said Bilotta.

This could happen as early as March or April. If taxpayers approve the project, then construction could conceivably begin in the summer, Bilotta said. The Fire District will seek construction financing from the United States Dept. of Agriculture, which makes funds available to build public buildings in rural areas, he said.

The Charlestown Fire District is a legislatively created taxing authority that encompasses about 80 percent of the town. Governed by a board of engineers, it includes the Cross Mills station and the Charlestown-Richmond station at the intersection of Routes 2 and 112.

The latter station opened in 2006 and replaced one that was located in the village of Shannock. It cost $1.7 million to build, and required the district to increase its borrowing authority by $1 million.

In recent weeks, in a related development, the town council has had to consider a request to abate taxes owed on the proposed site of the new Cross Mills station, which in turn initiated a discussion about whether the fire company is — or should be — tax exempt. Although most fire companies are tax exempt, the legislative charter for Cross Mills fails to state that it is. To its surprise and dismay, the company recently received a tax bill for the two-acre site on Old Post Road, prompting a request for an abatement.

At a recent council meeting, town solicitor Peter Ruggerio recommended that the fire company seek, through the legislature, to amend its charter to clearly state it is tax exempt. Then, it should return to the council, with its request for an abatement, he said.