The township’s 2017 budget has $80,000 set aside for land acquisition, Pribulka said.

The next step for the township is for the Board of Supervisors to discuss the report and its results at an upcoming meeting.

The report recommends that construction take place either in the short term (one to three years) or the near term (three to five years), and finds that the most desirable location for a station would be along West Whitehall Road between West College Avenue and Plainfield Road.

In 2012, the township purchased the 4-acre site where the new fire station was constructed. The money for the purchase of the property, as well as the design and construction, came from the department’s capital improvement fund.

Shelby Township officials broke ground on the construction of the 7,400-square-foot station last August.

Fire Station No. 5 will be staffed with four or five firefighters every day, and it will be equipped with an ambulance, engine and utility vehicle.

Starting July 1, firefighters, engines and other resources from those stations will go to other nearby stations as part of a larger Unified fire overhaul designed to cut costs and speed up service, the agency announced Wednesday.

Elected officials in the two cities are cheering the move.

"This is actually a very smart move for us to do this," said Kearns Metro Township Councilwoman Kelly Bush, who also is on the Unified Fire Authority board.

Bush said she was skeptical at first. But the change will bring more firefighters with different expertise, along with more engines, to a neighboring Kearns fire station, she said. She believes the bigger crew will help the station respond to several calls at one time, requiring less frequent help from other agencies.