For several years, officials with the Sedona Fire District have said the agency has outgrown its Uptown station and that something needs to be done.
With a new year may come a new station, or at least serious discussion about one.
An update was given on Station 4, located on Forest Road, during the SFD Governing Board meeting Dec. 17.
“We continue to look at all the ways easements impact the potential building envelope and what adjustments need to be made,” Assistant Chief Jayson Coil said. “By the end of this month we should have all of those easements reflective on one site so that we could see what areas will be impacted.”
SFD staff will be working together to develop a station workbook to provide the scope of components and expectations to the architect and builder, using their experience and expertise to make it fit in an efficient manner.
Coil said he recently toured constriction sites of new stations in the Phoenix area and looked at other architects specializing in this type of work.
“That had a lot of benefit,” he said. “One of the individuals I met with has 20 years experience in building stations. He’s worked with multiple types of construction companies, architects and designs. It’s someone who could be a good resource for us.”
In working with an expert like that, he said there are many ways to cut costs not only during the construction phase, but ongoing costs such as electricity and heating.
“Moving forward we’ll need some kind of preliminary idea on the design,” Chief Jon Trautwein said. “The next step will be the budgetary aspect.”
“We have several options, one being cash, a certificate of purchase or lease-purchase option,” he said. “When we go through our budget process this year, beginning this January, we’ll get the board everything it needs to carefully evaluate what we may need during that process.”
They will continue to look at the options, the associated costs, and will structure that in the budget process if they decide to go ahead with building a new station, he said.
“It’s great once we secure a site plan and have preliminary design costs, but then we really have to count the costs — can we do it and what’s that look like?” Trautwein said. “If we do the budgetary part well, then we just line everything up, pull the trigger and get the project done.
“So over the next few months there will be a little more heavy lifting on the budgetary side so that there’s a very high confidence level with the board, myself and staff to see if the money is there and how we’ll accomplish this.”
