NORTHFIELD — After achieving the necessary Special Town Meeting support in November, the town’s plan to purchase Valley Concrete & Construction’s facility at 546 Northfield Road in Bernardston to serve as a new home for Northfield EMS has fallen through.

Town Administrator Andrea Llamas said Thursday that Valley Concrete & Construction has withdrawn from purchase-and-sale negotiations for the 15,680-square-foot facility on just over 3 acres of land.

“Basically, the owner has told us he no longer wants to sell,” Llamas said. “We had been working on this for a long time and it’s obviously not what we hoped for or expected.”

According to Llamas, Valley Concrete & Construction did not need to provide the town with a reason for its decision not to proceed with the sale as a purchase-and-sale agreement had not been signed. While the withdrawal is disappointing, she said, no legal agreement has been broken.

Kelly Stasny, accounting and human resources manager at Valley Concrete & Construction, said the two parties simply failed to finalize and sign an agreement within the expected timeframe. She said the company had given the town 30 days to sign a purchase-and-sale agreement, and when the town did not meet the deadline, the offer was pulled off the table.

“We gave them a fair offer,” she said.

Northfield EMS Chief Matt Wolkenbreit said finalizing the agreement was dependent on legislation passing allowing the town of Northfield to purchase land outside its border. However, the legislation did not pass by the town’s deadline to sign the agreement.

“The timing just wasn’t working out, so the deal fell through,” he said.

An executive session on the planned Northfield EMS site, “to consider the purchase, exchange, lease or value of real estate,” was on the Selectboard’s agenda on Tuesday, April 1.

Stasny said she is not sure if the company will stay at its current location or if it will put the property up for sale and move to another lot in town.

A notice posted on the town website on Thursday announcing Valley Concrete & Construction’s withdrawal from negotiations said town officials are “incredibly disappointed as the property served as an exciting solution” to meet the needs of Northfield EMS, as well as provide extra space for other departments, such as Highway and Recreation. The Bernardston facility is significantly larger than the current EMS station at 41 Main St. in Northfield, which spans 1,488 square feet.

There have been three proposals to move Northfield EMS into a new, larger space over the past 12 years, including a $13.5 million public safety complex proposal that voters rejected in 2023.

In November 2024, however, residents at Special Town Meeting approved, by a 138-62 vote, purchasing and outfitting the Valley Concrete & Construction property for $2.1 million, as well as permitting the Selectboard to petition the state Legislature to allow Northfield to buy property in its neighboring town. The $2.1 million was set to come from $312,012 from the Sale of Cell Tower Easement Account, nearly $1.11 million from the Emergency Services Building Account and $680,479 from the Capital Stabilization Fund.

The town’s EMS team and the building committee have not met yet to discuss what Valley Concrete & Construction’s withdrawal from negotiations will mean for the town and its plans to secure a larger space for Northfield EMS. Llamas said Thursday that town officials are working to schedule a meeting to discuss this latest development and what the town’s next steps will be.

“We’ll continue to explore options and figure out where to go from here,” Llamas said.

Wolkenbreit said it was disappointing to learn the Bernardston site would no longer be a possibility. Moving forward, the building committee will have to reopen its search, which will include exploring sites that have previously been considered as well as looking for new ones. Wolkenbreit thanked the committee members for “their help in looking for our new home.”

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.