A bid to design and lead the construction of Fire Station #3 in Saratoga Springs was issued to CHA Consulting, Inc. of Albany Tuesday night, Jan. 19. The Saratoga Springs City Council unanimously approved a contract of $300,000, with CHA beating 13 other confirmed bids.
The station will sit on about two acres on Henning Road just south of 5th Avenue, property the city will lease from the New York Racing Association.
“This has been something that the city has been working towards for a couple of decades now,” Assistant Fire Chief Aaron Dyer said in an interview today.
After years of work, the station took a more formal step in December 2019 with a needs analysis followed last summer with the Request for Proposals on the design of the building.
Documents say the station will have three drive-thru bays, storage for gear, living quarters for eight firefighters, and offices and similar workspaces.
Dyer called the outline in city documents the base concept of the building that will be changed.
“We’re in the early stages of design. We’re hoping to make this a fun community project that everyone can be proud of,” Dyer said.
The fire department currently has two fire engines and one ambulance.
“This will add a third fire engine and second ambulance,” Dyer said, adding that the city needs the assets. They get mutual aid from Wilton, Malta and elsewhere on a fairly regular basis.
The building will also include a citywide Emergency Operations Center to accommodate up to 30 staff from police, fire and civilian departments. It will be a space for first responders such as fire, police, EMS, state police or others to coordinate their response to a larger event.
“Right now we don’t have anything that we can do that with,” he said.
The building itself, according to city council minutes from last June, will run 16,000 square feet with 400 square feet for evidence storage and 300 square feet for record storage. The estimated construction cost is $5.5 million and an overall budget of $6.7 million, including the design phase.
Although plans currently say construction could start this fall, Dyer said getting a full design and schematic drawing of the station is the first step, and then the city may pause depending on the budget. They also plan to seek grant funding to help with construction.