City of Fernie council January 23 selected the site for the new Fernie Fire and Emergency Services Department (FFESD) fire hall.

After an extensive site selection process as part of the pre-planning phase of the Fire Hall Replacement project, a portion of Prentice Park (1500-5th Avenue) will be the site for the new fire hall.

The next phases of the project will include further community engagement, continued exploration of co-use partnerships, concept design and project costing, the city reported, with the hope of it being completed by 2026.

The city noted it took a detailed approach to finding a fire hall site replacement.

In 2022, the old fire hall at 692-3rd Avenue was decommissioned due to significant issues with the facility structure and function and the inability of the site and structure to meet current requirements for a fire hall, the city outlined on its website.

At that time, the fire department relocated to operate out of the city’s old public works office, adjacent to the Operations Facility at 1492b Railway Avenue and a project was initiated to select a new site for constructing a purpose-built fire hall to serve the community for the next 50 or more years.

“Working with the consulting firm, Arcadis Architects Inc. (Arcadis), staff conducted an extensive planning study, including stakeholder and public engagement. This study included a review of FFESD operating requirements, a determination of the fundamental criteria for selecting a suitable site to build an efficient fire hall within the intended timeline, and a set of requirements to analyze those sites that met the fundamental criteria,” the city said.

“All city-owned land was considered through the process. Additionally, a formal request for expressions of interest (REOI) to identify potential site partners and co-uses was issued, and direct outreach was undertaken to develop awareness of the EOI.

“While this provided a number of potential co-users and co-uses that could complement a functional fire hall, the two potential sites that were put forward did not meet the fundamental criteria identified through the initial planning work.”

This process led to the identification of two suitable city-owned sites for further analysis: Site 1: 902-2nd Avenue and Site 2: 1500-5th Avenue.

After further study, Site 2 (1500-5th Ave.) became the recommended site for both its technical advantages and the flexibility of the site to accommodate co-uses and future growth, the city explained.

“It emerged as the preferred site for both the FFESD and city internal business units and was the recommended site by the Community Working Group.”

The city noted benefits of the site includes it meets standard NFPA and FUS response requirements, has a larger site area and less setback constraints, a shorter distance to Highway 3 than Site 1, and no known site contamination issues.

“The biggest advantage to the Prentice Park site is the flexibility that the larger site provides for site layout, future expansion beyond the anticipated 15% growth rate, and the independent development of a co-use that doesn’t affect the aggressive project timeline,” the city stated.

View the live stream of January 23 Fernie council meeting.

Read the report to council.

e-KNOW file photos

e-KNOW

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