MA City to Invest $10M to Improve Four Fire Stations

The City Council approved more than $1 million to improve four of the city's firehouses, and an additional $9 million is expected to be added to this year's budget.

The council unanimously voted Monday to approve three appropriations including $300,000 to design improvements at the Lexington Avenue Firehouse, $500,000 for interior floor concrete repairs at Lafayette and Inman Square firehouses, and $400,000 design improvements at the River Street Firehouse, according to communications from City Manager Louis DePasquale to the council.

The manager is expected to make a request for an additional $5 million for the construction of the River Street Firehouse project, and additional $4 million for the construction of the Lexington Avenue Firehouse project as part of the Fiscal 2021 budget.

An unspecified amount of money is also expected to be requested for the construction of the Lafayette and Inman Square firehouses as part of the fiscal 2022 budget.

In 2018 the City Council voted to appropriate $2 million towards the restoration of the city's fire stations after then Mayor Marc McGovern and Councilor Alanna Mallon toured the stations and said they were not happy with what they saw.

McGovern said he found firefighters sleeping on mattresses with holes. Floors were being held together by duct tape. Some stations didn't have carbon monoxide detectors or Wi-Fi. At the time he called the experience "extremely disturbing."

The city has already made moves to renovate the 85-year-old Fire Headquarters on Broadway with an expected price tag of $25 million.

Acting Fire Chief Gerry Mahoney said he's grateful for the support and ongoing work being done on the eight firehouses around the city.

"Being an old, densely built city, we have a lot of challenges when doing major work at a firehouse," said Mahoney in an email. "Of the eight firehouses, four of them were built or first occupied in the late 1800s. Trying to accommodate modern day equipment in a building once served by horse-drawn apparatus is a challenge. Firehouses are very unique in their design and the functions they serve."

"I'm happy to see the process moving forward," he added.

On Monday both McGovern and Mallon thanked DePasquale for stepping up to help the city's firefighters.

"I really did want to say thank you again to the city manager and his team for acting quickly last term to develop this comprehensive capital plan for our aging firehouses that are in need of significant investments," Mallon said. "These tonight represent close to $10 million dollars in capital repairs in fiscal years 20 and 21, [and] it looks like there's more to come in fiscal year 2022."

McGovern echoed the vice mayor's sentiments.

"I think it was two years ago, a little over two years ago now that we, [the] vice mayor and I toured the different firehouses in the city and saw some of the less-than-adequate conditions," McGovern said. "And the city moved quickly to put funds in place and to move these projects forward, so I appreciate that."

DePasquale noted that the city is having difficulty figuring out where to put headquarters during renovations.

"So that project may get delayed," DePasquale said. "We're working hard on it."

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