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Three years ago, the Farmville town council agreed to make a change over time, moving to a combination fire department that includes both paid positions and volunteers. Now comes the question of how you’re going to house everyone. That’s something council members discussed at both last week’s work session and the yearly retreat this weekend. 

During the work session, they heard from Greg Gilbert with Bignell Watkins Hasser Architecture and Interiors. The town had contracted with Gilbert’s group to get a better understanding of both what was needed in a renovation and what kind of costs they’d be looking at. 

“We came and did an on-site survey, spent a day, actually two days, coming around, looking at all the different situations there,” Gilbert said. “We got access to the drawings at the facility, we then put together a program of what the existing facility is and then, working with the chief, created a new program of what was required to meet their needs.”

Gilbert said his group then put together multiple concept designs and price points, based on that program. From that data, they developed a phased proposal that could get everything finished within a 12-14 month window. 

There’s not enough space 

Farmville Town Manager Scott Davis told the council in their Wednesday, Feb. 5 work session that this was needed for several reasons. 

“The station was built in 1991 and it was built as an all-volunteer fire station,” Davis said. “There’s no real living quarters in the fire station. We now have more female volunteers than we had. The women’s bathroom does not have a shower. When one of our five female volunteers has to shower after an event, they go tell everyone else in the firehouse they’re going to take a shower and lock the men’s bathroom.” 

There’s also just not enough space, Davis and Gilbert explained. As it stands now, the firefighters sleep in the meeting room and do any decontamination in the apparatus bay. Gilbert also pointed out that personal protective equipment (PPE), the helmet, hood, suspenders, coat, pants, boots and gloves used to fight fires, doesn’t like sunlight. 

“If you just have your gear out in the apparatus bay and the sunlight is hitting it, it’s degrading the chemicals and codings in it,” Gilbert said. 

That’s backed up by data from the National Fire Protection Association. Cleaning, drying and properly storing PPE away from sunlight can extend its lifespan by several years. And that’s not cheap to replace. A full PPE set is around $2,000. 

So what would change for Farmville? 

So what would this renovation change or add? Well, it would mean building bunk rooms, shower rooms and laundry rooms. The gear would be stored in a separate room, one that’s constantly ventilated. 

“It will dry the equipment out and have a longer life and will pull the gases off the equipment and out of the building,” Gilbert said. 

This renovation would also include a better fitness area, one also accessible 24-7 to members of the police department. Bunk rooms in this building would also be directly connected to the apparatus bay, reducing the rate of response.

The proposal has things being done in phases. Phase One would involve building the support areas, then an expansion of the parking lot to the rear. This would allow the department to move supplies out of the existing building. Phase Two would involve developing the shell outside construction around the existing building. Once that’s done, you can finish the interior renovation, upgrade the apparatus bay and do any final paving. As mentioned earlier, this is estimated at a 12-14 month project. 

“We’re not really seeing it as 14 months where the building is totally unusable,” Gilbert said. “It’s phasing it over time. There’s probably a four-month period where the difficulty of operating out of the station will be the greatest.” 

Cost of the Farmville fire proposal 

So now you’ve heard the rough draft. The question is what would all of this cost. And that depends on when it gets built. If it’s built within the next year, that’s roughly around $11 million to create. If that’s delayed a year, it goes up to $12 million and then $13 million and $14 million the more it gets pushed back. The further in the future it’s pushed, the more expensive it gets. 

Council members had questions about the location and timing. Donald Hunter asked if it would be quicker or even cheaper if the town did everything at once, rather than doing it in phases. The answer was yes and no. It might be a little less, Gilbert said, because there are costs associated with having to do one phase at a time. But it might be harder to find somewhere else for the fire department to operate. 

Thomas Pairet asked if it made more sense to just completely relocate and rebuild the fire station in another location. He was concerned because in the past, that area had been part of the flood plain. 

“I may be wrong, but I believe at one time that was under water when we had floods,” Pairet said. “I just wanted to make sure we weren’t spending a whole lot of money and then winding up with water problems.”
Davis said the fire department isn’t in the current 100-year flood plain as it’s designated. It was also pointed out the town would have to buy any new piece of property to relocate the fire station and that the infrastructure, such as water and sewer, is already in at the current location. Moving the building means paying to install infrastructure elsewhere. 

 Farmville Fire Chief Daniel Clark said as both the town and the fire department grow, their needs grow as well. That’s why this would be needed. 

“As you grow, you’re going to need more administrative offices, more sleeping quarters, so as we try to plan all this in, this renovation will last well into the future,” Clark told the council. 

No decisions were made at the work session.