After requests from the current and former fire chiefs, the city maintains that repairs are a more feasible option than acquiring a new fire station.
Every year for seven years, the Athens Fire Department has asked the mayor for new, centrally located headquarters.
Since 2007, that request has been denied for lack of funding.
Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl said the last time city officials seriously looked into developing a new station was around 2009, when the city could have applied for a $5 million federal grant to fund the project under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
But Wiehl said the project was estimated to cost more than the limit on the grant, so the city dropped it.
Repairs have been made to the current AFD Headquarters, 61 Columbus Road, and are meant to help with the department’s needs, but AFD Chief Robert Rymer said it still needs a new headquarters.
“I believe there is a need for a centrally located fire station that is more energy efficient,” he said in an email.
He said that since the fire station was built about 45 years ago, the city has expanded greatly, and so has the fire department. When the city purchased a $1.1 million ladder truck two years ago, Wiehl said, officials had to take various measurements to ensure the floor wouldn’t collapse under the weight of the truck.
“The trucks are bigger, and we are providing more resources, requiring more equipment,” he said.
Rymer remembers former Chief Robert Troxel making those requests when he ran the department. Rymer, who also requested a new headquarters, replaced Troxel in March.
“(They said) the administration is aware of the need; however, funding is not available at this time,” Rymer said.
Current repairs, totaling $93,000 at the headquarters, have been in the works since July and were projected to be completed by mid-December. Repairs were intended to mend a crack in the concrete infrastructure of the department.
Those repairs were originally estimated to cost $63,000, said Athens City Council President Chris Knisely.
The building’s roof was already repaired for $92,500 a little more than a year ago, and $150,000 worth of repairs were completed in 2009.
Even though those repairs have been common in recent years, Knisely said it makes more sense to do several small repairs annually than to fund an entirely new fire station. She said the funding wasn’t in the city budget to move the station to a new location.
“It’s kind of like a house,” she said. “You continue to do repairs on it.”
Wiehl said with the renovations that have been made on the fire department, he doesn’t think a new station is as much of a necessity anymore.
“The cost of acquiring a new building is so much more than repairing an old one,” he said.
But Rymer said that a new station is still needed.
“The repairs that have been made over the years have allowed us to continue its use,” he said. “However, the need for another station or larger replacement station is still necessary.”
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