👋 Good Morning, Apex! Today is Thursday, July 23, 2026 and this is the 81st weekly issue of The Peak Weekly.

When the Apex Volunteer Fire Department was officially chartered in 1939 by 19 local citizens, they didn't have the budget for a custom-built fire engine. Instead, their very first piece of apparatus was a used dump truck purchased for just $35.

In legendary firefighter fashion, the volunteers promptly removed the dump bed and sold it for $10 - which, according to official department records, was "immediately converted into beer". The volunteers then sat on the empty wooden beer crates in the station while brainstorming how to remodel the old dump truck chassis into a functioning fire engine.

A few years later, they acquired a classic 1939/1940 Ford Hunter pumper truck. Remarkably, that antique fire truck survived the decades, has been meticulously preserved by the department, and still runs to this day!

It remains a beloved symbol of Station #1's heritage and is driven annually through downtown in the Apex Christmas Parade.

The iconic brick building at 210 N. Salem Street wasn't built by municipal contractors; it was constructed by the volunteer firefighters themselves. Starting in 1954, the volunteers poured their own time, sweat, and labor into building the original three-bay brick firehouse, officially dedicating it in July 1956.

After serving as the home of the volunteer squad for nearly half a century, Station #1 officially transitioned into a fully staffed, career municipal operation in 2002 when the volunteer organization consolidated with the Town of Apex.

Fast-forward to today and the fire station is on the brink of being demolished. Down below, in the Civic Updates section, I go into more detail on this. I encourage you to give it a quick read!

Miscellaneous Info:

🐕️ Dog Park Partially Closed
The lower section of the Hunter Street Dog Park is temporarily closed while crews complete drainage repairs. Anticipated reopening by the end of the week, weather and construction permitting. The upper section of the dog park remains open for use.

📈 August Utility Bills
The FY27 utility rate increases went into effect July 1. Reminder that you will notice an increase in some rates and fees related to water, sewer, electric and solid waste collection beginning with August bills.

🚧 Salem Streetscape Phase 2
Phase 2 of the downtown project has kicked off - meaning construction has moved to the other side of Salem Street. Traffic will continue to flow one-way (same southbound direction as Phase I). Northbound traffic can use the posted detour around downtown (NC-55 & Hunter St).

🏘️ $14M Land Deal
Brookfield, in partnership with homebuilder Ashton Woods, acquired 30 acres for $14.5 million, according to Wake County deed records. The Langford Place community will be HWY64 near Sweetwater and will have 63 single-family homes on 51-foot-wide lots. This purchase price comes to $472,962 per acre.

🥁 Mochas, Munchkins and Music
This Tuesday, July 28 from 9:30am - 10:30am at The Mocha Room is a fun-filled morning for munchkins and their grown-ups. There will be coffee for the grown-ups, interactive music activities for the little ones (age appropriate songs and movement for ages 3-7), and fun for everyone.

🛡️ Shield NC Bingo Benefit
This evening, local anti-trafficking nonprofit, Shield NC, is hosting a Bingo Benefit at the Apex Senior Center. The doors will open at 5:30 and the first game will begin promptly at 6:00. Most prizes are worth $50 with many valued over $100! All proceeds go towards helping to end human trafficking in our communities.

Things to Do This Weekend in Apex:

Friday, July 24

🌵 Invasive Plant Removal Workday
10am - 12pm | Apex Community Park

👩‍🌾 Afternoon in the Garden
6pm - 8pm | Apex Nature Park

🦋 Moth Night
8pm - 10pm | Apex Nature Park

🎸 Live Music: Joe’s Cousin
8pm - 11pm | Peak of the Vine

🛍️ Mabopane Marketplace
7am - 12pm | Mabopane Foundation

Saturday, July 25

🧑‍🌾 Apex Farmers Market
8am - 12pm | The Depot

🏍️ Bikes and Coffee
8am - 11am | Fratelli’s Deli

🏃‍♀️ Run Club Apex
Meet at 9am | Foxtail Coffee

🥕 Community Garden Work Day
9am - 12pm | Simple Gifts Community Garden

🎶 Meadow Melody Makers
9:30am - 10:30am | Kelly Road Park

🛍️ Mabopane Marketplace
10am - 1pm | Mabopane Foundation

✒️ Pour Decisions: Tattoo Pop-Up
12pm - 5pm | Southern Peak Brewery

🤘 Live Music: 5th Time Around
8pm - 11pm | The Backyard Bar

🚜 The Peak Weekly Farm Series

🥬 Zephyr Family Farm

This article was written by The Peak Weekly’s amazing content contributor, Susan McGrath

This week, we’re featuring a farm that is no longer in Apex but still serves the town of Apex—Zephyr Family Farm in Roxboro. Founded in 2020 by Amanda and Steven Harrell, Zephyr Family Farm began as a realization that farming was a way for them to combine their dreams of family, work, and community. The farm was originally located in Apex but more space was needed, so they found their forever farm and relocated to Roxboro.

Located on eleven acres and currently housing five large, heated greenhouses, as well as open farmland, Zephyr Family Farm grows forty different types of produce through all four seasons.

Amanda and Steven are committed to being responsible land stewards and community members. No chemicals are used in growing their produce, they buy seeds from small farms and small companies, and they source supplies as locally as possible. They minimize tillage to protect soil health, and they strive to reduce plastic waste in all forms. Zephyr Family Farm is a certified naturally grown farm.

And the great news for Apex residents is that they offer CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) with an Apex pickup location by FigMint Farm (Two Pond Lane in Apex), through Rooted Community Foods.

CSAs are available in early summer, late summer, and fall/winter. They can be purchased for weekly or biweekly pickup. The late summer CSA is still open for purchase, and pickups will start in two weeks. Their fall/winter CSA will run from September through December and is available to purchase on their website now. Winter is their favorite time because they have heirloom tomatoes, grown organically in soil in their heated greenhouses.

And starting with their fall/winter offerings, you’ll have the option to choose your vegetables or let them choose for you. And you can pause your pickup schedule for travel or other reasons. They also offer flowers, which you can add to your CSA pickup through their website.

To learn more about their CSAs, click here, and to purchase a CSA and see all available offerings, click here. And be sure to follow them on Instagram and sign up to receive emails about future CSAs and farm news.

CSAs are a great way to eat more vegetables (fiber!) and discover new vegetables. For example, in their early summer CSA this year, they offered a Dutch heirloom bean called dragon tongue, which are bigger than standard green beans and are yellow with purple stripes. You can eat them raw or cooked. They are delicious!

I think we can all agree that it’s more important than ever to buy from small, local farms and give our support to the hardworking, responsible land stewards that we’re so lucky to have all around us. Our support ensures their continued growth and success and provides us with healthy, farm-fresh produce. That’s a win-win.

Civic News:

🚒 Another Decision That Already Happened Without You: The $13.8 Million Mirage

The Town says the future of the downtown fire station is still an open conversation. The paper trail says the conversation ended in February 2024 — and the $2 million savings pitch that sold it has become a $13.8 million bill.

If you follow the Town of Apex's official statements, the future of historic Fire Station 1 on North Salem Street is still being decided. "No decisions have been made about the property's use," the Town posted this week, promising public meetings where residents can shape what comes next.

The Town's own records tell a different story. The decision that matters - permanently ending active emergency operations downtown - was made at the Town Council's February 2024 retreat. Everything since has been execution.

"We Agreed"

On February 16, 2024, at the Council's annual retreat, new Fire Chief Tim Herman pitched relocating Station 1's engine to Station 3 on Hunter Street, citing narrow streets, illegal parking, and downtown event congestion. Ten days later, Councilmember Mahaffey posted a candid retreat report on social media.

Mahaffey didn't describe a discussion in progress. He wrote: "We agreed."

He laid out the whole plan that day: move the engine to a bigger Station 3, tear down and redevelop the downtown site, and put a hands-on fire safety museum on the ground floor. "The station 3 renovations would happen first."

That's exactly what happened.

The Paper Trail

• Feb 2025: Design teams visit Station 3 to plan for absorbing Station 1's crew.

• Mar 2025: Mahaffey posts a site layout labeled "FIRE STATION 3 + FIRE STATION 1 ENTRANCE."

• Aug 2025: Staff hold a pre-application site plan meeting to push the expansion through commercial review.

• Sep 2025: Mahaffey posts floor plans; construction set for December 2026.

• Jan 2026: Council minutes reveal the Town had to re-issue its redevelopment RFQ because applicants thought a fire station was still planned for Salem Street. Chief Herman confirmed the language was revised to make clear it isn't. The RFQ states the building "is intended to be demolished."

• May 2026: In a budget post, Mahaffey writes that the Station 3 expansion will house "crew from Fire Station 1 when Fire Station 1 closes" - ten weeks before the Town's statement stressing that no decisions have been made (you get that the Town makes decisions, pretends like they care what you think, and then Terry bends over backwards constantly to manipulate you, right?)

• Jun 2026: Mahaffey confirms on Facebook that the Station 3 estimate "has grown to about $13.8 million."

The Shrinking Promise

Here's the part that should bother you even if you don't care about the building: watch what happens to the fire department's place downtown each time the plan changes.

2019: By Mahaffey's own account, when Council weighed renovating, rebuilding, or relocating Station 1, they listened to public feedback and chose to rebuild an active fire station on the site.

2024: The retreat plan dropped the active station. But it still promised a Fire Administration building with a hands-on fire safety museum on the ground floor. The fire department would still live on Salem Street.

2026: The current redevelopment request drops the Fire Administration building too. It asks private developers for a market study, says the site "will not house an active fire station," and requires only "a fire presence of some kind." The examples it lists include a museum - but also just "public art" or "the building design."

Each version keeps less. In seven years, the promise went from a working fire station, to a fire office with a museum, to possibly a mural.

That's what makes the "Save Apex Fire Station 1" group's request worth understanding clearly. They want a working station with a museum inside it. They're not asking for something new or radical. They're asking for roughly what the Town itself described at the start — before it quietly traded that promise down, twice.

The $2 Million Savings That Became a $13.8 Million Bill

The financial case at that 2024 retreat fit on one slide.

As presented, it would cost $5-6M to rebuild Station 1 but just $2-3M to remodel Station 3.

Council took the deal.

Here's where that slide stands today:

The Station 3 remodel - the $2–3 million line item - now costs $13.8 million. That single line item exceeds the entire $11–13 million plan Council rejected as too expensive. The $1 million storage line became a $1.4 million warehouse. And the $6–7 million Fire Admin building became a $16 million Phase 2 ($1.6M in design plus $14.36M in construction) — a building that, in fairness, now also houses Police and IT space, but one whose fire-driven schedule exists because of this plan.

The Town's own January 2026 funding slide explains how the number doubled: the increase "includes sitework for the whole project," the cost per square foot "increased" after the advance planning phase, and "additional needs [were] discovered during advanced planning for the existing structure."

Read those again. The $2–3 million figure that justified abandoning downtown was produced before any advance planning existed - it was never a real number. And the existing Station 3 building, the very thing that was supposed to make renovation the cheap option, turned up surprise costs once engineers actually looked at it - the same failure mode that pushed Council away from renovating Station 1 back in 2019.

The Next $14 Million

There's more coming. Fire Administration has to leave its current building by July 2030 because of the NC 55 road widening. To solve that, the Town designed a "Hunter Street Public Safety Campus" combining Station 3, Fire Administration, Police, and IT.

In January, Town Manager Randy Vosburg told Council the second phase needed $14.36 million that was "not in the financial model." It didn't stay that way for long: by May, Mahaffey's own budget posts described about $14.57 million in the FY2026–2027 capital plan for the Fire Administration Building. In four months, the unfunded warning became programmed money. A plan sold at $9–11 million all-in now totals roughly $30 million.

August 11 - and a Timing Question

The "Save Apex Fire Station 1" group, led by former volunteer firefighter Roy Moore, plans to fill Town Hall on August 11. On the agenda that night: a budget amendment to pay for the downtown site study.

Which raises a question. Council adopted the annual budget on July 1 - about six weeks before this vote. The redevelopment request has been public since January, with a consulting firm supposed to be picked back in April. If the Town knew for months that this study was coming, why wasn't the money in the budget it just passed? What did the study end up costing, and when was the firm actually chosen?

Either way, residents at that meeting won't just be defending a building. They'll be standing in front of a Council that turned a $2 million promise into a $13.8 million bill, drew up the blueprints a year ago, and told the public the choice was still theirs.

You can follow the Save Apex Fire Station 1 Coalition on Facebook here. And/Or sign their petition here.

I’ll try to remain hopeful but the RFQ is already out there stating that it’s going to be demolished, plans are actively in motion to do that, Mahaffey is already controlling the narrative, and your tax rate and utility rates have already been increased. The whole “we want your opinion” thing is seemingly just another song and dance by perhaps the least transparent town council and town manager that Apex has ever seen.

Upcoming Meetings:

Wednesday, August 5
Environmental Advisory Subcommittee: Data Centers
5pm | Town Hall

Monday, August 10
Planning Board Meeting
4:30pm | Town Hall

Tuesday, August 11
Town Council Meeting
6pm | Town Hall

A Look Ahead:

July 31
Splash Blash | Pleasant Park

August 1
Rhythm & Reels: Tre. Charles | Nature Park Amphitheatre

August 5
Wednesday Night Movie | The Halle

August 8
Rhythm & Reels: The Bad Guys 2 | Nature Park Amphitheatre

August 13
🎟️ Family Trivia Night | Apex Senior Center

August 15
Rhythm & Reels: Emma Rae | Nature Park Amphitheatre

August 20
🎟️ Murder Mystery Dinner: Death by Disco | The Halle

August 21
The Great Southeast Pollinator Census | Apex Nature Park

August 21
🎟️ On the Steps Concert Series | The Halle

August 22
Rhythm & Reels: Mario Galaxy | Nature Park Amphitheatre

August 27
Triangle Environmental Symposium: Rooted in Justice | The Halle

August 27
Back-to-School Community & Conversation | TBD

August 28
🎟️ Neon Nights - Silent Disco | The Halle

August 29
Meadow Melody Makers | Kelly Road Park

August 29
Rhythm & Reels: Ol’ Joey Scrums | Nature Park Amphitheatre

In Case You Missed it:

🍂 Fall Program Registration
Fall Program registration is now open for residents. Fall Program Guide | Fall Senior Program Guide | Registration Link

🚧 Apex Senior Center - Temporary Closure
The Apex Senior Center will be temporarily closed August 18–September 7, 2026 for a facility-wide flooring renovation project and is scheduled to reopen on Tuesday, September 8. During this time, the building will be closed to the public, and all programs, classes, events, and rentals at the Senior Center will be cancelled.

🚧 Tobacco Trail to Close for Repairs
Beginning Aug. 1, the trail will be closed in the Apex area from the Wimberly Road parking area to the entrance of the White Oak Creek Greenway. Construction is expected to be complete by Oct. 31.

A Final Note:

Thank you for taking time out of your day today to read this week’s edition of The Peak Weekly. If you love it, please forward it to a friend. If you don’t love it, please unsubscribe.

And, as always, if you have any ideas of how to make this newsletter better, want to nominate a local business or organization to be featured, or anything else, please respond to this email or email me directly at [email protected]

See you next Thursday... 😘