For years, Seymour Fire Chief Brad Lucas has thought about the city’s need for a new fire station.
Two of the city’s three fire stations were both built in 1967, making them 54 years old next year. They replaced the station that was located downtown where Burkhart Plaza is now.
In those five decades, the city has expanded greatly to the west, and the fire department has outgrown itself, Lucas said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
The issue has been discussed by past mayors but only in the sense of a future project. For Lucas and Mayor Matt Nicholson, the future is no longer years down the road, it’s now.
During Monday night’s mostly virtual city council meeting, Lucas requested the city look at purchasing property in the 1000 block of West Second Street across from Skaggs Builders for a new fire station.
The property is owned by Premier Ag and once was the location of Swain National Veneer Co.
Lucas also proposed the renovation and expansion of Station 1 at 318 East St., which serves as fire station headquarters.
“This is something I’ve been working on for several years now with previous mayors, previous councilmen and a lot of our firefighters,” Lucas said. “So I’m just thrilled to finally have something together to present to the council and to the public and maybe get started on our new fire station.”
The property on West Second Street is four acres in size, but Lucas said the city will only need about half of it for the project. He estimates the property will cost around $400,000.
The ground is available and shovel-ready which makes it easier to begin construction, Lucas said.
“It’s paramount that we secure this property, because I’ve heard there are other people looking at that property,” he said. “It’s ready to dig on. The utilities are there and some of the ground drainage is already there.”
Nicholson suggested the council form a committee to develop specifications for an official request for proposals (RFP) for design and construction of the new station.
Lucas said he also planned to get input from the firefighters on the design of the new station.
“They are the guys that are going to be living there, so they should have the input on how the station is put together,” he said.
Council President Dave Earley agreed they needed to act soon.
“We need to get going pretty quick on this if people are looking at this property,” he said.
Instead of adding a station, the new facility will replace Fire Station 2, which is located at 500 W. Fifth St. near Emerson Elementary School. That property could then be repurposed by the city or sold, Lucas said.
Both stations 1 and 2 are block buildings with concrete floors that Lucas describes as “worn out.”
“We’ve kept them up well, and they’ve served us well, but it’s time,” he said.
The buildings are cramped for space providing little room for fire inspectors and officers to work.
“It’s not suitable for what we need,” Lucas said.
Station 1 will not be replaced but is in need of a lot of work, he added. At its current location, there is available space to expand on both sides of the building, he said.
“It needs to stay where it’s at,” Lucas said of Station 1. “It’s near downtown. It’s near the hospital and to keep our ISO points it’s in an ideal perfect center of town.”
Currently, the department’s administrative office where Lucas and administrative assistant Kim Roach work is located at Station 1. Lucas said the office is too small for both people along with a conference table.
“Everything is in a 16 by 14 room,” he said. “There’s no room for our inspectors to work, for the officers to do their jobs, the training officers to do their jobs. We really need an administrative office complex.”
Those administrative offices will be relocated to the new fire station, he said. The offices also could house an assistant fire chief in the near future, he added.
Another improvement will be an added training room, updated bunk rooms to give firefighters more privacy when sleeping, utilities that are easier to access for repairs, larger engine bays and a separate room for turnout gear.
“In a 53-year-old building things are going to go wrong,” he said. “We’ve done what we could to make it work, and it still works, but it’s definitely time to do something about it.”
Although they look identical, Station 2 is smaller than Station 1 and houses three firefighters per shift. But Lucas said he expects to add a fourth in early 2021.
Both stations are serving larger areas than they were when they were built, Lucas said.
“We didn’t have the area behind the high school. We didn’t have a lot of things west of town on (U.S. 50),” he said. “Seymour kind of ended at what would now be Community Drive. The city has grown since then.”
At the time, the two stations provided good fire and emergency coverage for the city, but due to the city’s growth, Lucas said Station 2 is no longer in an ideal location.
“Coverage is not good for Freeman Field and the areas we’ve built on west of town,” he said.
The best location for the new station would have put it somewhere between Kasting Road and Airport Road.
“But it’s a long way from the northwest quadrant of Seymour and that’s our population base. I’m guessing 40 to 50% of the city population lives there and we make a lot of runs there,” Lucas said. “So you have to kind of weigh that out.”
That’s why they started looking at property in the middle and landed on the Premier Ag property.
“It’s all cleaned up and just an ideal spot for the station,” he said. “We’re seconds to get on to Community Drive and go under the underpass to get to Highway 50 and out to Freeman Field. But we’re very near to the population base there and just eight or 10 blocks down from downtown Seymour.”
Building a new station will be a multi-million dollar venture, but Lucas and Nicholson agree there may not be a better time to do it. That’s because the bonds for the city’s police station will be paid off next year. The police station, built at a cost of $4.75 million, opened in May 2007.
The city will need to take on a major project to reissue that debt and keep its tax rate steady, Nicholson said.
Lucas said he isn’t planning to build a luxury fire station, but one that will meet the needs of the department and the community now and for many years to come.
“We’re not building a palace for the guys to live in,” he said. “It’s just a very functional fire station. I believe it’s time we get busy on this.”