Athens City Council discusses plans for new fire station

Athens City Council at its regular body meeting Sept. 7. Screenshot by Kate Marijolovic.

Athens City Council discussed plans for a new fire station during its meeting Tuesday night. 

Preliminary plans for the new firehouse are currently in the works. 

A formal request for qualifications was posted Tuesday afternoon on the Athens City website. According to the request, Athens’ current fire station has numerous structural problems. 

“Built in 1965, the current station is experiencing major defects including structural degradation, and failure requiring continual repairs. The structure is no longer conducive for its original purpose,” the request stated. 

The request estimated that the project will cost $6 million. 

After considering the results of a study conducted by the Southeast Regional Operations Center assessing the feasibility of different locations for local government agencies in Athens, the city of Athens decided that the new fire station will be built at a location off of Stimson Avenue.

The site is located off of the traffic circle dividing East Stimson Avenue and North 1804 Way. It is currently an empty lot bordering the Hocking River. 

Andrew Stone, the Athens Safety Service Director, clarified the difference between a bid for a construction contract and a request for qualifications for the Council.

“For construction you have to do low bidder, that’s the rules, but for design services it’s best qualified. We did put out today to have architectural firms provide qualification statements to the city,” Stone said.

Councilmember Sarah Grace expressed support for the new firehouse in light of a recent fire that destroyed a home in Athens early Monday morning. 

“I’m excited that we are moving forward with conceptualizing the design for the firehouse. I think that it’s a long time coming and I believe that our fire department is absolutely ready for a new firehouse,” Grace said. 

During the Finance and Personnel Committee portion of the City Council meeting, committee members approved reallocating $60,000 from the fire department’s payroll fund to the ACFD’s capital and supply lines funding. The transfer of funds will not impact the current salaries of fire department staff. 

Stone said the fire department estimates $100,000 of payroll funds will not be spent this fiscal year because the department is understaffed.

“We’re seeking to make that transfer because we’re about $100,000 underspent, tracking to be about $100,000 underspent, in payroll for the fire department and that’s because of vacancies inside that department,” Stone said.

The transfer of funds will provide the means for the fire department to purchase new helmets and pagers. It will also allocate money for the hiring of an architectural firm to begin work on a conceptual design for a new firehouse. 

In other business, City Council received a notice from the Ohio Division of Liquor Control regarding the transfer of a liquor license in Athens. 

The license, currently held by Treglia Group Corporation at 14 North Court St., will be transferred to a company under the name 14th North Court St. LLC, doing business as Red Brick Tavern. The transfer has yet to be approved. 

Meetings are now held in-person and live-streamed on the government channel for remote viewers.