LOGAN — After years of planning and 18 months of construction, Logan City firefighters are getting ready to move into their new headquarters. Station 70 is nearing completion, built on the corner of 200 North 100 East, across the street from the existing building.
During a tour of the new facility, Fire Chief Nate Thompson said, “The old station had lived out its life.” The building has been in use for 50 years after originally being built in 1974.
Jalayne Hatch, administrative assistant with the fire department, said a major concern with the old building was how it could withstand a major earthquake. The new station will provide more space and be seismically up to date.
“The old building was not seismically sound,” explained Hatch. “It had been retrofitted back in 2007 or 2008, and it helped. But, if there was a big earthquake that building wouldn’t last. We wouldn’t have any way to get our apparatus out of the building to go respond to the emergencies that would ensue from a disaster like an earthquake.”
The construction project totaled around $14 million and wouldn’t have been possible without financial assistance. The department was able to secure more $10 million in grants, a majority of which was federal COVID money.
While walking through the new station, Hatch showed how the 1st floor has bays for all of the fire trucks and ambulances. It also has a conference room that the department never had in the old building.
“We had a very small space that could maybe hold 10 people comfortably, but it was really tight,” she said. “So, to have this bigger space is helpful for our crews to come in and train plus have meetings with all of our captains.”
A change that many will notice from the outside, the bay doors in the new station open horizontally instead of vertically, which is quicker and safer. The vehicle bays also have an air filtering system to prevent vehicle exhaust from spreading through the rest of the building.
On the 2nd floor, Hatch showed off the new offices for the department’s administration. In the old building, most of the captains and chiefs were having to share what limited space there was.
“Now, everyone will have their own office,” Hatch explained. “More privacy for meetings and to take phone calls. It will be a change, a really good change.”
The 3rd floor contains 10 dorm rooms and individual bathrooms, also an upgrade from the shared quarters in the old station. There is also a large kitchen, weight room, patio, office space and a common area.
Hatch said the new building will have some of the traditional fixtures you would expect to see in a fire station, including a new fire pole. There will also be a small museum on the 1st floor, where several historic pieces of memorabilia and photos will be displayed.
“The new station was built big enough to house our antique fire wagon which has been stored at the Service Center up until now,” she detailed. “With all of the extra space in the apparatus bays, we will most likely be able to move our antique engine that we drive in parades over here also. A section of the fire pole from the old station will be displayed in the lobby too.”
Chief Thompson said firefighters are hoping to begin moving into the living quarters by March 29. A formal ribbon cutting ceremony is being planned for some time in April, as soon as construction on the building’s exterior is finished.