Tips After 10
Ten years ago, the Byron (Ill.) Fire Protection District celebrated the opening of its new fire headquarters and training facility. The 35,000-square-foot facility, designed by Durrant, went on to win the 2001 Station Style gold award in the volunteer category.
Current Chief Galen Bennett was a shift lieutenant at the time. I spoke with him recently to find out how the facility has worked out for the past decade. He said that the building has held up well overall, but there are a few items they would change if they could.
The facility was designed with four apparatus bays at the rear of the building and a separate service door on a brick wall. Bennett said that rather than the service door, the station could really use one more garage door. “We currently have an apparatus stored in that space,” he said.
Bennett also would change the sleeping areas. “The dorm area is set up to sleep six with partial walls, but based on the complaints about snoring, I would have made it a full wall to the ceiling,” Bennett said, noting that a single bathroom is located directly across from the dorm area. Additional men and women toilets are on the other side of the building.
When the station was built, residential appliances were installed in the station; Bennett currently is trying to change to commercial appliances. “We’re on our third dishwasher in 10 years, and I’m trying to take out a cabinet to fit in a new commercial-grade stove,” he said.
Changes like Byron’s are physical. But too often, even the best-designed fire station must survive political change. Delhi (Ohio) Township’s Main Fire Station, built by Cole + Russell Architects (now CR Architecture + Design), won the first Station Style gold award for a career department.
The facility’s project description said the 6,000-square-foot second floor was “intended for future fire department and township growth.” Today, part of the second floor houses administrative offices for the parks and recreation department, while the remainder is used for training and meetings.
Current Fire Chief William J. Zoz said that the vision of the new facility was not executed as planned because the political body changed, and the new political body didn’t share the original vision.
Zoz was not with Delhi at the time of construction; however, his two assistants were captains in the department. Based on their experience, it was agreed that if the project took place today, several items would be done differently:
- The height of the bay area would be considerably reduced.
- Ceramic, low maintenance tile would be used instead of the hard goods requiring constant maintenance.
- Higher-quality cabinets instead of the veneer cabinets.
- Better research on the contractors used as at least three went out of business during the construction process.
- Better high-efficiency garage doors instead of the heavy glass, low-efficiency garage doors.
In 2001, the building also was recognized for its difficult topography and on-site parking requirements. “Parking is a challenge when more than 20 visitors are coming to the building, but there is ample parking 50 yards down the street at the township senior center,” Zoz said.
“This is an extremely expensive building to maintain,” Zoz added. “Annually, $30,000 is appropriated for maintenance contracts and repairs to the building and the utilities to operate the building run $70,000 annually.”
Building for the future isn’t just 30 or 40 years down the road; sometimes the truth shakes out in 10.
July 21st, 2010 at 6:17 pm
The first volunteer station replaced by the county didn’t take 6 months to start a long list of “we should haves”. The county chief at the time was “budget minded”. The building was reduced in size from 12000sf to 8500sf. They did not do away with any rooms, just made them smaller which made several useless. We are getting ready to start our second building. The county officials took over responsibility of the design with direct input from the FD building committee. Our board of supervisor actually increase the size of the training/meeting room. The building will be 15500sf with five drive thru bays. It has taken 5 years to get to this point, hopefully we have caught most things. One of the simple things we caught late in the process was the kitchen cabinets. We visited a station just completed by the architects we are using. First thing the FFs pointed out was their plates would not fit in the “builder grade” cabinets. Simple things. Call me in ten years and see how we do
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:59 am
Our Central station is 3 years old. We installed stainless steel counter tops and they are the way to go. Easy to clean, but does show some scratches. Our cabinets are Formica covered inside and outside. I would suggest that you go with commercial grade appliances. I would also suggest that you place your dishwasher at the end of your cabinets. The reason being our kitchen is handicap accecsable and so the cabinets are lower. Your dishwasher will have to be able to fit under your cabinets, which means a small in height washer. We have trouble fitting large plates and pans in ours. Also do not use a Coldtech commercial refigerator. The door hinges dot not last very long and it is to noisey.
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Dennis, I would strongly suggest that if county building officials overseeing fire station designs, they need to make a priority of dealing with contamination issues from firefighters exposure during calls and plan ahead for technology upgrades. I think those are the top two areas I hear about on old stations. Third would be air quality.
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