Engine 1 is a tight fit at 85 year old Central Station
The first significant progress in fifty years towards constructing a new South Fire Station occurred yesterday with two (5-0) unanimous votes of the DPW/Fire Station Advisory Committee. Please excuse my Irish/Catholic roots: Thank God!
1) Request Town Manager assign town staff member OPM for (Owners Project Manager) for Initial phase fire station feasibility study.
2) Request Town Manager to assign a town staff member to draft an RFQ (Request For Qualifications) to conduct a fire station feasibility study.
Proposed timeline for completing these two requests is by their next meeting June 30th.
RFQ released by July 29. Committee will meet August 19th (due date for RFQs) to review responses and select finalists who they will interview publicly.
Millions of dollars of equipment stays outdoors at 100 year old DPW facility
Complete selection by September 1st and open price proposals. Need dollar amounts for Fall Town Meeting by September 30th, combined with schematic design phase for DPW.
The DPW project, like the Jones Library expansion and new $65 million Mega-School, is further along than the Fire Station project, having already completed the initial feasibility study.
One of the main reasons the DPW Fire Station Committee was created is because these two projects have thus far been the red headed bastard stepchild of the four major projects that will exceed $100 million in town money.
The committee is tasked with not only coming up with efficient buildings in the right place that will serve these two departments for the next 50 years, but to also educate the public on their dire need.
I asked Chief Nelson after the meeting if he saw the unanimous votes as real progress?
"It was the long way around the barn, but it is real progress."
AFD Chief Tim Nelson (standing) Assistants Chiefs Linday Stromgren (right) Don McKay (left)