City Council gives support for new central fire station, animal shelter locations

An occasional siren now will replace what once was the sound of drums and bugles.

The City Council Tuesday night unanimously supported the recommendation of the Fire Department and voted to build the city's new $22.6-million Central Fire Station in the 700 block of First Avenue SE, the one-time home of the Emerald Knights Drum & Bugle Corps.

The council also voted 9-0 to replace a second flood-damaged city facility, the city's animal shelter, at a new site along 76th Avenue SW on the Kirkwood Community College campus.

In making the recommendation on the Central Fire Station Tuesday night, Fire Chief Stephen Reid called it “a proud moment” for the department.

Reid checked off a list of reasons why the Emerald Knights site was the best of three options for the new facility, not the least of which was that it was the least costly of the sites, he said.

Ryan Companies US Inc., the project manager for the new fire station, estimated the cost to build the facility on the Emerald Knights site at $22.6 million compared to $25.7 million for the block next door that houses The History Center and $23.2 million for the block across the street from The History Center with a Taco Bell restaurant on it.

Reid said the Emerald Knights site had a willing seller who is in the process of demolishing and removing the building from the site. He noted that The History Center expressed concerns about moving to a different location while the Taco Bell restaurant had recently been renovated.

In addition, Reid said the Emerald Knights site had good access to Interstate 380 and had the best topography of the three final sites and so would be the easiest on which to construct a fire station.

A citizens advisory committee as well as the Fire Department's own in-house committee worked hard, the chief said, to sort through at least 10 possible sites for the new Central Fire Station before arriving at the three finalist options. Among the criteria for the new facility was that it be outside the 500-year flood plain, which ruled out rebuilding on the west-side site of the city's flood-wrecked former Central Fire Station.

Building the new Central Fire Station on First Avenue East will allow the department to close a district fire station near Coe College and will require the department to build a new district fire station on the city's west side. The department has secured state I-JOBS funds to help with the west-side station, and the department will have disaster funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state I-JOBS funds to help pay for the Central Fire Station.

Construction on the latter is expected to begin in 2011 and to be complete by the fall of 2012, Greg Buelow, department spokesman, said last night.

Council member Chuck Swore had given some thought to locating the Central Fire Station on The History Center site with the idea that the history center could move to the Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island or even the new library. Last night, though, Swore said the Emerald Knights site was the best spot for the new facility.

Council member Tom Podzimek credited Swore with thinking of ways that entities like a history center and a library, for instance, might feed off one another. Podzimek also said he thought putting the new fire station on the Taco Bell site might enhance a key gateway into the city, but he said in the end the Emerald Knights site was a good one.