Fire station construction on pace, budget

The noise of drills, saws and nail guns surrounds the skeleton of a building on north Calhoun Road.

A crew of workers, shaded from the late-June heat, erects walls inside the building while electricians talk about the location of lights, switches and other items.

Trucks and construction equipment occupy a formerly grassy field, one that is newly graded and will be seeded this fall as part of the improvements at Fairview North Park.

So goes the construction on the Brookfield Fire Department's new Fire Station No. 2.

Contractors are making progress on the city's two new stations - bookending Calhoun Road, the north-south thoroughfare bisecting the city - and should be finished by late fall, but not everyone is looking forward to the opening of the facilities.

Some neighbors worry about the effect on the park and about living so close to a fire station.

Site work started in winter

Site work at the two stations - Station No. 2 at Fairview North Park on Calhoun Road north of Capitol Drive and Station No. 3 at the northwest corner of Calhoun and Greenfield Avenue - started in December, and both stations should be completed in the next four or five months, Director of Administration Dean Marquardt said.

"I'd be surprised if (the firefighters) weren't in their new quarters by early November," he said.

The projects are within their roughly $6 million budget, but that figure does not include work that will be done at Fairview North, including grading, landscaping and the addition of new playground equipment.

More detailed numbers will be available for the city's elected officials this week, Marquardt said.

More space at new stations

The new facilities will replace two aging stations and align all three buildings - Fire Station No. 1 is next to City Hall - along Calhoun Road. The realignment will help the city serve the western half of Brookfield more quickly, but some calls to the city's east side will now have slower response times.

The new stations, which are essentially the same architecturally, will be 12,000 square feet each, or about the size of the current Stations No. 2 and 3 combined.

Fire Chief Charlie Myers said having more space at the new sites allows for features the department does not have now, including decontamination areas, separate training and fitness rooms and individual bunk rooms for firefighters.

"Really, it conforms to what today's needs are," Myers said.

Staffing at the stations will not change, with five firefighters on duty per shift. Personnel from each station are expected to respond to two or three calls per 24-hour period, on average.

Park will take at least a year

One thing that will change is Fairview North Park, the site of the new Station No. 2. The station is being built inside the 8-acre park along Calhoun Road. Moving the station inside the park has allowed the city to make improvements in grading and functionality there, Marquardt said.

The entire park site will be seeded and regraded by the time the stations are done this fall, but depending on how the grass matures on the site, some park uses, such as the ball field and soccer field, might not be ready until later in 2010 or even 2011.

Mark Schneider, whose backyard abuts the park, said he has not seen any noticeable effect from the construction but he worries that putting a station inside the park could make it more "institutional."

"I think they'll be a good neighbor," he said. "I was just disappointed what it may do to the park."

Katherine Vance, who lives to the north of Fairview North Park, has had to deal with dust and noise from the construction this year. She said she did not agree with the decision to move the station in the first place.

"I don't want it in the neighborhood; I don't want it in the park," she said. "I don't want it right next to me. I don't want to hear sirens."

AT A GLANCE

Time line of events surrounding the relocation of Brookfield's Fire Stations No. 2 and 3:

June 2006: A task force recommends moving two of the city's three fire stations farther west to reduce service times to the western half of the city.

April 2007: The Common Council approves the task force's recommendation.

November 2007: The Common Council votes to acquire land at the northwest corner of Calhoun Road and Greenfield Avenue, the future site of Station No. 3.

August 2008: The Common Council approves plans to move Fire Station No. 2 from Capitol Drive and Lilly Road to Fairview North Park near Capitol and Calhoun.

December 2008: Site work begins on both fire stations.

Spring 2009: Construction starts on both stations.

November-December 2009: Construction is expected to be completed.