CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Hyannis Fire Station.
HYANNIS – The Hyannis Fire District Board of Commissioners is having an architectural and engineering firm look at the cost of renovating the current fire station and adding an addition instead of building a new station.
The voters of the district turned down proposals for a new fire station three times in 2014, citing the high cost.
The district needed two-thirds approval to allocate the funds for the project. For all three votes, a majority of voters were in favor but not the two-thirds needed.
The figure for the vote taken the third time, on October 25, 2014, was for a station not to exceed $17.7 million. That took into account the sale of two fire district properties, a vacant lot on Phinney’s Lane and an old fire station in Hyannisport, that were estimated to be worth about $1.2 million. Funds from the sale of those properties would then be used to offset the cost of the new station.
In past votes, in 2010, the district approved $2.79 million for three parcels of land abutting the current station in order to build a new larger station. With the additional land, the fire district now has three acres at the intersection of High School Road Extension and Stevens Street.
So far, $675,000 has been spent on the design costs for the new station. That amount was approved by district voters in 2011 for architectural, engineering and owner project management services.
Peter Cross, chairman of the board of fire commissioners, said that the cost of renovating the building was looked at early in the process but no definitive numbers were put to the option.
“A while back I had some people approach me and say, ‘Why are you going to tear down a perfectly good firehouse.’ We don’t know that it’s a perfectly good firehouse. We’ve been told—but not had any empirical evidence—that this would cost more to renovate and add on to then it would be worth,” Cross said.
A few weeks ago, the board asked the firm of Kaestle Boos, which specializes in public safety facility designs, to analyze the option of renovating and adding on to the existing building, Cross said.
“I need numbers. And the voters deserve to have numbers,” he said.
The board will discuss the report at its next meeting on October 8. The board discussed holding a workshop meeting prior to the meeting on October 8 in order to analyze the report, but a date was not set for that workshop.
Cross said he expects the district will go back to the voters some time in the next year with a new proposal for a new fire station.
“We need more space. We need more room,” he said.
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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