Decatur Fire & Rescue has a new fire chief, and Southwest Decatur will soon get a new Fire Station No. 5.
The City Council voted 4-1 Monday to approve construction of a new fire station at 2704 Danville Road S.W., across from Austin Middle School, for a cost not to exceed $3.25 million. The cost includes engineering and the architect’s fee.
The council also unanimously approved Tracy Thornton’s promotion to fire chief at an annual salary of $95,291.
Council members said they supported replacing the old Station 5, which is located 0.8 mile north of the new station. The old station is on Danville Road Southwest, near Decatur Morgan Hospital’s rehabilitation center and Decatur Mall.
Thornton said the aging station built in 1962 is too small for today’s wider firetrucks and it doesn’t have drive-thru bays. A new $500,000 firetruck arrived in June, and Council President Paige Bibbee said it barely fits in the bay.
“There’s only inches between the truck and the wall,” Bibbee said. “It’s amazing to see how quickly the drivers park.”
The old station also isn’t compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, it doesn’t have a separate bathroom for women, and the drivers have to stop traffic to back into the bays, Thornton said.
“It’s not in bad shape,” Thornton said. “We’ve tried to keep it in good repair. It’s just too small and outdated.”
Councilman Billy Jackson was against building the station on the new site, preferring instead to tear down the old station, rebuild on the current site and buying land farther south in the city.
Bibbee said she also wanted to build on the old site because her late father worked for the fire department out of Station 5, but she felt the site was too small.
“It would have been cool to have a two-story building with a firefighter’s pole,” she said.
Now the department will get a new 9,000-square-foot, two-bay station on roughly 1.5 acres for the 12 firefighters who work out of Station 5. There’s room to expand, possibly adding offices for a battalion chief or additional bays, Thornton said.
“We expect construction will take 12 to 18 months,” Thornton said.
Councilman Chuck Ard said he supports building a new fire station, but he voted against it because he opposes publicly announcing their budget before they seek construction bids.
“I’m 100% behind (it), but this is putting the cart before the horse,” Ard said. “If we plan to spend $3 million, none of the bids are going to come in under $3 million.”
The city has already spent $17,000 on tree removal from the site on the corner of Danville and Modaus roads. The city paid $375,000 for the land.
The approval of Thornton’s promotion from division chief concludes a nine-month search to fill the position left vacant when Tony Grande resigned in December to take a job with the state of Tennessee.
The search went through two application periods as it was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic in March. But in August, the council decided to end the search and promote Thornton. The council interviewed Thornton and Fire Marshal Jason Jones before promoting Thornton contingent on successful salary negotiations.
Thornton, 48, joined Decatur Fire & Rescue in 1999 and worked his way through the ranks. He has been sharing the fire chief’s duties with Division Chief Trent Putnam since Grande’s departure.
Thornton will be in charge of 116 staff members. The Ardmore resident and father of four has a year to move to Decatur.
In other business, the council reappointed Billy Cook Jr. as municipal judge, voted unanimously for the fiscal 2021 budgets and approved hiring Huntsville-based Matheny Goldmon Architecture for $122,500 as project architect for the interior renovations of Carrie Matthews Recreation Center.
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