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Portland City Council today accepted the transfer of a 3.7-acre U.S. Department of Defense site in the Multnomah Village neighborhood.

The site is currently being used as the Sgt. Jerome Sears U.S. Army Reserve Center, which is scheduled to shut down in September. The city plans to use the site as an emergency response center on the city’s west side. And the best part: the city is getting the site for free.

The city is receiving the property at no cost because the emergency response concept was determined to be a public benefit by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The site, which was recently valued at $3 million, had been pegged by the city for affordable housing ever since it went on the Department of Defense‘s surplus property list in 2006.

But after realizing last year that the Portland Housing Bureau would not be able to fund a housing project there, the city started looking at the possibility of using the site as a staging and response facility in the case of an emergency or natural disaster.

According to Commissioner Nick Fish, if the city would’ve went forward with the affordable housing concept the city would probably only have received a 50 percent discount on the site instead of the full discount.

In addition to receiving support from the council, the project also received support from the Multnomah Neighborhood Association, the association for Multnomah Village.

The emergency response center will be used as a staging area as well as storage for equipment like plows, bulldozers, fuel and other emergency supplies.