MA Town Eyes Two Sites for New Fire Station

NORTHBOROUGH — The town is focusing on two properties on which to build a new fire station, a project that will play out over the next two years.

Options include buying additional land around the current station on Pierce Street or building at the vacant Pierce Gas Station on West Main Street. The Fire Station Feasibility Study Committee presented the options to town officials last week.

The town started considering a new station several years ago.

The next step is for the town to collect proposals to buy the properties, which are due Dec. 18, said Fire Chief David Parenti.

“We sent a message out to everyone who was interested and based on the responses we got from that we contacted these two property owners,” he said.

If the station stays on Pierce Street, the town would need to buy both an adjacent laundromat and 10 Church St. The existing station would be demolished, which means the department would have to relocate to temporary quarters during construction.

Parenti said the project will be done in two phases, with Town Meeting next spring being asked to support money to buy the land and start design work. The town will seek to use about $1.4 million left over from the Lincoln Street School project for the station, which will require a vote at the polls, Parenti said.

“Over the course of the next year, design would take place,” he said.

The money to construct the building will go before Town Meeting in 2020.

The feasibility study committee will weigh the positives and negatives of each site along with cost, Parenti said.

“If we build at our current site, we would have to relocate for up to two years and tear down the current station. Those are additional costs we need to consider,” he said. “Whereas if we build on West Main Street there is no relocation costs, we can stay where we are and the town can either re-purpose or sell the current station.”

The building was not designed for the number – or size – of modern fire vehicles. The department has evolved from a call staff when the building first opened in 1974 to an agency having 20 full-time firefighters who work 24-hour shifts. The station does not have accommodations for female firefighters.

While the current building doesn’t have structural deficiencies, it no longer meets the demands of the department. It needs a new heating and cooling system, roof work, and electrical and plumbing improvements.

“We are really crammed in there,” Parenti said. “We don't have a good exhaust system for our trucks.”

Preliminary cost estimates range from $7 million to $9 million, depending if the town needs to buy land, according to the plan. The studies started under former Fire Chief David Durgin, who retired in 2015.

Somerville-based Johnson Roberts Associates, which is conducting the study, also worked with the town on its library project about a decade ago.

Jonathan Phelps can be reached at 508-626-4338 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JPhelps_MW.

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