New station for Fire Department on order in Louisville

LOUISVILLE – A new wall under construction in the city Fire Department garage is indicative of the structural shortcomings inside the building.

It's prompting Louisville officials to relocate fire operations to soon-to-be built quarters.

"We have to separate the fire gear from the firetrucks," Fire Chief Rod Bordner said, explaining the need for the new wall. "That is an NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) regulation. That is a new wall we are putting up right now. The union said we had to do this."

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The union Bordner refers to is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 746. The separation wall will keep diesel fuel fumes from the firetrucks away from the firefighting equipment.

The department's time in a cramped and outdated quarters within City Hall at 215 S. Mill St. is coming to an end. City officials are purchasing a 3.68-area site in the 1000 block of S. Chapel Street to secure space to construct a new fire station.

Louisille acquiring the land from school system

City officials are spending $130,750 to buy the land from the Louisville City Board of Education.

"My guess is, if things go well, I would say spring when we start construction, or early summer," city Manager Larry Collins said. "We might make it a safety-service facility and combine the Police Department there."

The Police Department currently is at 1150 W. Main St.

The Fire Department has two fire engines, one ladder truck, three ambulances, one utility truck and a vehicle for the chief.

"We have outgrown it with the size of our trucks," Bordner said. "We staff four personnel. So we don't have enough space for them to stay the night. The bay area where the trucks sit, it is just not large enough. We are not going to get any new equipment if we get a new building. We just have to have more room to accommodate the equipment that we have."

Currently, city officials are not certain how much they will spend to construct a new fire station.

"We don't have specific numbers," said City Councilman Corey Street. "I want to see what it looks like when the design comes back and the grants come back, and what we can afford. We are hoping to get some grants at the federal level. We are going to take a look at others available at the state level. We are hoping to combine a bunch of different funding sources without increasing taxes."

Former Knights of Columbus hall 

The site where the fire station is to be constructed at one time was where the Knights of Columbus Council 2530 sat. It was acquired in 2003 by the Louisville Public Library as a proposed site for a new facility.

When library officials failed to secure funds to build a new facility, they passed it on to the Louisville City Board of Education in 2011 in exchange for school-owned land around the 200 block of S. Mill Street where a middle school once stood.

"Starting a few years ago we made significant investments with our Fire Department in terms of staffing," Street said. "We realize we have some catching up to do in terms of what a 21st Century fire station should look like."

One component that is expected to be included in the new fire station will be a biohazard decontamination chamber.

"We don't have a biohazard decontamination area," Collins said. "The place was built in the 1950s or 1960s. Those things were not an issue back then. The building here is dated, it is old. It doesn't comply with national standards. It served the community well."

Officials with the local school system apparently had no plans for the property on S. Chapel Street.

"We weren't necessarily looking to sell it," said Brenda Ramsey-L'Amoreaux, Board of Education president. "But we didn't have big plans for it. Obviously, if there was a chance to build something, the property is there."

Reach Malcolm at 330-580-8305

or malcolm.hall@cantonrep.com

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