The Valley Regional Fire Authority Board of Governance broke ground last week on a $3.2 million remodel of the South Auburn Station 32 at 1951 R St. SE.
Plans call for the project to increase the size of the 24-year-old station from its present 6,554 to 7,194 square feet. The price tag includes the cost of a temporary fire station behind the present building.
Actual work will begin after the new Lakeland Fire Station 33 at 500 182nd Ave. E. is finished in November. When the remodel is finished next summer, the VRFA will have five fire stations — South Auburn Station 32, Lakeland Fire Station 33, the North Auburn Station 31 at 1101 D St. NE., Lea Hill Station 34 at 31204 124th Ave. and Pacific Station 38 at 133 3rd Ave. SE.
“This is not merely a remodel,” said VRFA Administrator Eric Robertson. “While the building is only expanding some 600 square feet, it means additional quarters for staff, more people on duty, more units available and lower response times. That is our goal — quicker, better service.”
Established on Jan. 1, 2007, the VRFA connects the existing resources from the Auburn and Pacific Fire Departments to provide fire services to the communities of Algona, Auburn and Pacific. Its 118 full-time employees provide fire, rescue and EMS services. The VRFA’s nine-member Board of Governance is comprised of the mayors and two City Council members from each of the participating cities.
Voters in the three cities approved funding for the remodel as part of a larger funding projects measure in February 2008 that included money for the new Lakeland Hills Station.
In the last years of former Auburn Mayor Chuck Booth’s administration, City leaders recognized that several fire stations were beginning to reach the end of their functional lives, and there was no money to do anything about it.
Citing the solution offered by the joint VRFA, Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis, a member of the board of governance, called the remodel and other capital projects “a great example of what we can do together that we couldn’t do individually.
“We would have limped along as best we could, put back together as much as we could for decades. With the new leadership of the VRFA, with the equipment that’s been provided and is being provided, with the facilities that are being provided and more to come … we’re able to say finally that we have the kind of fire and emergency service we should have had for decades,” Lewis said.
“All three cities … wanted to see public safety improved in all of our cities,” said Pacific Mayor Richard Hildreth, chairman of the VRFA Board of Governance. “The capital faciities plan attests to that.”
====
At a glance
• Project:
• Cost: $3.2 million
• Location: 1951 R St. SE Auburn.
• Project owner: VRFA lease from the City of Auburn
• Owners project manager: Paul Berry, Harris and Associates
• Architect: Ed McManamna, Rice Fergus Miller Architecture and Planning
• General contractor: Par-Tech Construction
• Completion Date: Summer 2010.
