Perrysburg council set to decide on 2nd fire station
2/5/2018Perrysburg has been preparing for a second fire station for 17 years, and the city’s administration pitched its current plans to the full city council Monday evening.
Council gathered for a committee of the whole meeting Monday in anticipation of Tuesday’s city council meeting, when members will consider seeking bids for the roughly $9.8 million project.
If approved Tuesday, the city hopes to begin building the station in April. That allows the city to save some money by finishing the construction in one building cycle, Karen Karl, lead estimator for Lathrop Co., said Monday.
The station is getting more expensive in the interim, she said, because construction costs continue to rise. She estimated the facility may cost 10 percent to 12 percent more by delaying the station for two years.
The city already has about $2.1 million set aside for construction, though much of that has already been allocated to various pre-construction portions of the project.
A second station should not immediately need additional staff, Fire Chief Rudy Ruiz said, though that will likely become an issue as back-to-back calls become increasingly common in the rapidly-growing city.
With the second fire station, firefighters should be able to reach almost anywhere in the city in five minutes or faster, Chief Ruiz said. The second station also will house training facilities that will keep firefighter training on-site. The station is also designed to keep carcinogens released in a structure fire quarantined in one area of the building, which should lower the risk of cancer in the city’s firefighters.
“It’s quickly becoming the No. 1 firefighter killers,” Chief Ruiz said. “Now we’re separating the contamination from the living quarters.”
City council still has to decide whether to fund the station through short or long-term debt, a decision that will be made at later meetings.
Contact Zack Lemon at zlemon@theblade.com, 419-724-6282, or on Twitter @zack_lemon.