Roseville Continues Fire Station Planning

The city of Roseville is moving forward with plans that could eventually lead to construction of about a $7 million, single site fire station for the community. 

The Project Planning Team—a 20-member committee of citizens, current firefighters and retired firefighters—has begun work this month to help the city find architectural services and potentially construction management for a new fire station project, said Roseville Fire Chief Tim O’Neill. That search, he said, could occur over the next couple of months.

Once the city hires an architect or construction management firm to do preliminary drawings and come up with estimated project costs, “we hope in five to six months we will have a project that we can show the City Council, the community and the fire department as to how it would look, ” O’Neill said.

The Project Planning Team also intends to start touring other newer fire stations in the metro to see what worked and didn’t in fire station design for their cities, O’Neill said.

The work of the Project Planning Team comes on the heels of a 12-member citizen and firefighter committee this spring that recommended Roseville replace its three fire stations for one new one at the site of the City Hall campus. That facility could be 32,000 to 36,000 square feet in size at ballpark cost of $7 million, O’Neill said.  

The Roseville Fire Department Building Facilities Needs Committee, in a 16-page report, said the city’s three fire stations have a myriad of maintenance issues, from mold and leaking roofs to outdated electrical and mechanical systems.  The group recommends it would be more efficient to build one large fire station rather than remodel all three fire stations. 

Currently, Roseville has:

• , 2701 Lexington Ave.
• , 2501 Fairview  Ave. (which serves as a vehicle storage facility and is no longer in active use)
• , 2335 Dale St.  

Fire Station No. 1 was built in the 1930s, while Fire Station No. 3 was erected in the mid-1970s. Those three stations together represent 24,000 square feet.

One big plus for considering a new station at the site of Fire Station No. 1 is that it erecting the facility on existing city property would save $1 million to $3 million in land costs, O’Neill said. He noted the bigger fire station would need about two and a half acres, space that could be achieved by tearing down the existing building and expanding into the adjacent parking lot.

“This would allow us to do the most economical and cost effective project rather than trying to maintain three stations,” he said

Another plus: Fire Station No. 1 is centrally located and volunteer firefighters can respond to fire calls within typically three minutes, O’Neill said.

For now, however, the city hasn’t reached the point of deciding how it would pay to build a new fire station.

But O’Neill said his department and will begin preliminary conversations on that topic soon with the City Council. Most communities use capital bonding to pay for fire station construction because its an essential service. he said.  Another option is to hold a referendum, an alternative that would add several months to the timeline to eventual construction, O’Neill said.  But the bonding option would be favorable now given that interest rates are low and construction costs down because of the sluggish economy, he said.

Bob Murphy, a Roseville firefighter from 1979 to 2001, served on the Facility Needs Committee and is also on the new Planning Project Team.  He said he’s pleased the City Council is proceeding with the fire station project. 

“One of the charters of the city is to provide public safety and that (firefighting services) is a core need, ” he said.

Murphy added he hopes the city will pay for the project through capital bonding, a position he believes most taxpayers will accept once they understand the fire department’s dire needs. “I don’t think it will take a hard sell to present that to citizens with an open mind,” he said.

So far, O’Neill said he’s not met any opposition to the fire station proposal. “Instead of looking to grow, we came back with “Here’s how we are going to reduce,” O’Neill said. “And that resonates really well with the community.”  

Meanwhile, Murphy noted it would be nice to see a new fire station built after previous reports in prior years resulted in no city action.

The city commissioned Tridata Corp. to do a study in 2001, and then a follow up in 2008. However, no city action ever came from the prior reports.