The last time the Vancouver Fire Department added a new fire station was in 2010. Fire Station 11, which will serve Fire District 5, is now in the works, albeit a little behind schedule.
“My goal was to get the property by 2017, so we’re past that,” said Vancouver Fire Chief Joe Molina.
The Clark County Fire District 5 board approved a $1 million deal in February to purchase property in the state Highway 503 corridor, north of Orchards. The parcel was appraised at $1.44 million. The deal is now less than three months from closing.
The need for a new fire station to serve Fire District 5 was established back in 2013, but Molina said they decided to begin moving forward with the process last year.
“We kind of knew the area we needed to keep an eye on,” he said. “The economy is really booming, and building construction is happening faster than we thought it would in 2013.”
With that realization in mind, Molina said they approached the district board and said now is the time to find a piece of property for the new station.
“It’s always good to have the property ready to go,” he added. “That’s where you have to start.”
The next step is finalizing a funding agreement between the district and the city.
Although the 42-square-mile district has not yet been annexed into the city limits, a contract for fire protection services has been in place for more than 20 years. The district pays the city its contracted price and saves the rest to cover operational costs and a savings fund.
The fund has a balance of more than $11 million, the bulk of which will be used to pay for the property and new station.
Molina said the building construction and design should cost about $9 million, which leaves the district with about $1 million in reserves in case project costs increase. The most recently built fire stations — stations 1 and 2 — were built for a total of $15 million. Molina said he’s already lining up the same project manager to work on Fire Station 11.
“I’m just trying to get my ducks in a row,” he added.
Mike Lyons, Fire District 5 commissioner, said they are proud to partner with the city on the project.
“The growth in the area has been pretty tremendous in the last few years, and I believe we need to address it,” Lyons said.
The pending agreement states that the city will take possession of the district’s funds with the intent to spend the money on construction costs and the property purchase in the works. In the future, 90 percent of the funds collected by the district would go toward operational costs and staffing the new station. Station 11 should have 13 or 14 new firefighters on staff.
“Other than that, we’re still in negotiations, talking to the district about timelines and when we’d construct the station,” Molina said. If everything goes according to plan, construction could begin in March 2019.
They want to avoid a situation like the one with Multnomah County’s Wapato Jail, which sat unused for 14 years before the county finally sold the property at a huge loss.
“We don’t want to build a station and have it sit vacant,” he said. “It’s critical we can start a fire station and staff it.”
Molina said he hopes the agreement to move forward will be signed by April. He says he’s 95 percent sure it will happen.
“If the agreement blew up on the station, what we’d wind up with is a piece of land for that future station,” he said. “At least we’re going to wind up with that.”
