Community Post

Update on new Fire Station

Last week the mayor announced that the city would start construction on six new fire stations this year, as part of the 2003 levy we approved to fund replacement and upgrades for the city’s fire and other emergency facilities.

Fire Station 6 here in the CD was not on that list, so we made a few calls to see what the story is.  Christina Faine from the fire levy program got back to us with some details:

  • The new fire station will be built on the CAMP property at the southwest corner of MLK & Jackson.  After a long negotiation, the city’s purchase of that property closed in October of last year.
  • The construction costs for new fire stations have been much higher than what the city expected, putting the entire program at risk of exceeding its budget.  Asked if there’s a chance that could keep our fire station from being built, Christina said “ndividual project schedules are being adjusted — not budgets. 
    Projects have not been taken out of the program.”
  • The city is in the process of selecting architects to design the new station, and design work could start as soon as April. Hopefully that means we could get a look at the new designs later in the year.

Worried about the fate of our Art Deco fire station at 23rd & Yesler?  Never fear:  it’s landmarked and can’t be destroyed.

 

0 thoughts on “Update on new Fire Station

  1. This is great news! I’m hopeful that a fire station at this location will be a great boost to the overall safety in this area. Are there any stats supporting crime reduction near fire stations?

  2. Any idea about whether the existing station will be sold or re-purposed by the city? It’s a great building and could make a neat community place of some sort.

  3. Wellll…. The current station is two blocks from 23rd and Jackson, and that hasn’t prevented a string of daylight shootings there.

    This is the CD, people thumb their nose even at the police drop-in center.

    I will say that firefighters make great neighbors. They seem to take pride in tending the lawn and flowers outside.

    The new station is important in that the fire-fighters are horribly squeezed in the old one. It wasn’t built for modern ladder and engine trucks.

  4. Could it be turned into a youth center of some kind – perhaps to house some of the activities that were originally planned to be included in the Northwest Afican-American Museum before the nonmuseum parts of that building were turned into housing?

  5. Are you sure it is really landmarked? When they had community meetings on the choice of new site for fire station, several residents had checked and although landmark status had been sought, it had not been granted at that time. This news seemed to be a complete surprise to the fire officials and folks from the planning department and they said they would look into it but no further news has appeared in the paper.

  6. Yes – according to fire levy’s PR person, the City Council passed an ordinance in 2007 to complete the historic landmark process for the old building.