Welland fire halls construction begins in November; two new stations being built at same time
August 20, 2020
Welland fire halls construction begins in November; two new stations being built at same time
A new Welland Fire and Emergency Services Station 1 headquarters will be built at 400 East Main St. starting November and is expected to be open in February 2022. DAVE JOHNSON / TORSTAR
At a cost of just more than $18 million, construction of two new fire halls in Welland will begin in November.
They’ll replace an aging facility — the former Crowland town hall station — with flooding and raw sewage infiltration issues, and another station never designed to house firefighting equipment.
Two volunteer fire halls — Station 4 on Schisler Road, Station 5 on Rose Avenue — will be closed and merged into the new headquarters on East Main Street.
During this week’s council meeting, Ward 5 Coun. Graham Speck asked about the project and was told by Steve Zorbas, the city’s chief financial officer, there was a multi-year capital financial strategy set out to build the new fire halls.
Zorbas said funding sources for the project were approved by previous city councils.
Speck asked if the $18,038,650 was enough to cover both builds at the same time.
“Yes, the external management firm working on this has the mandate to deliver on time and budget,” said Zorbas.
Welland Fire and Emergency Services new Station 1 headquarters, with a training tower, comes in at $13.67 million and will be built at 400 East Main St., the former Atlas Steels property.
It replaces the current headquarters at Station 2, 636 King St., and current Station 1 at the Welland Hydro building, 950 East Main St.
The new headquarters, expected to be open February 2022, will be 2,005 square metres, which includes a large garage area that is nearly 50 per cent of the building and accommodations for volunteer and career firefighters.
A report from Deputy Chief Adam Eckhart said the training tower is the centrepiece with room to navigate vehicles around it, and the site layout will support the training of staff while on-duty without interrupting service delivery efforts.
His report said a stormwater pond is being positioned so water can be used for training and recycled back into the pond, reducing the need for municipal water.
Station 2, expected to be open in December 2021, comes in at just more than $4.2 million and includes the demolition of the current headquarters at 636 King St. It will go behind the existing station, and be 580 square metres in size with the garage space almost 60 per cent of the overall building size.
An additional $150,000 was allocated for furniture, fixtures and equipment for both stations.
Designs for both stations, and the training tower, have been completed.
Eckhart’s report said the project team applied for two grants, one to help with design and modelling, focusing on energy use and the another that will apply toward construction and design costs.
“Station 1 (headquarters) will be designed to exceed the National Energy Code (NEC) ... This will reap long-term cost savings to the corporation by reducing the energy used at the building and make the project eligible for a capital grant application,” his report said.
Ward 2 Coun. David McLeod is glad to see the city moving forward on the new fire halls.
“We were talking about this 10 years ago. We have old facilities and, quite honestly, all five (stations) have been identified as not meeting the needs of today’s fire service. I’m excited to see this come together.
“This is a big deal for the fire service and the city of Welland. We’re basically starting over, but in a good way,” said McLeod.
Eckhart said Welland’s firefighters were excited to things move forward and start to take shape.
