Lawrence will renovate Fire Station 3 instead of moving it, starting with a $425,000 repair contract
Vote passed unanimously, comes amid other spending on the department
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Sign up freeLawrence commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday, Sept. 8, to spend $425,000 on exterior repairs at Fire Station No. 3 rather than relocate it, phase one of a roughly $5 million renovation.
Majed Al-Ghafry, Lawrence's city manager, said the item reached the commission only after he questioned why the city would spend money on a station it had planned to relocate. He said a review with his office, the fire chief and staff concluded the current location is the right one, and that response times are not expected to change under the renovate-in-place approach. He put the cost of building a new station elsewhere at $12 million to $16 million.
Joe Hardy, LDCFM Fire Chief, said the department looked at 70 possible locations for a Station 6 under the 2020 station optimization plan and that current data supports keeping Station 3 where it is. Hardy also said he does not yet have a timeline for the phases. The city manager said the work would be spread over the next three to five years, with another portion planned for next year.
Mayor Brad Finkeldei said Station 3 lacks some amenities other stations have and is not as up to date.
"So if we're staying there, I'm glad to see we're going to make some of those investment in our employees who are going to be there," the mayor said.
Commissioners recalled that firefighters built the station's storage building themselves and that it was used as temporary bunk space during earlier renovation work.
Vice Mayor Mike Courtney remarked that the commission had taken up two fire stations in two months, a reference to the $951,502 fire station design contract commissioners weighed in early August.
The Station 3 decision came out of a wider look at capital spending: the city manager told commissioners the same night that his office would send them a memo within days outlining a comprehensive review of the capital improvement program involving all departments, the budget office and the finance office.
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