By Alan M. Petrillo
When Beukendaal Fire District in Glenville, New York, formed its station replacement committee, the 18-person group was focused on building a new firehouse. But, the committee ran into potential issues—from environmental problems because the station location was in an aquifer recharge zone, to the lack of a tax base to support the estimated $7 million to $9 million cost of a new firehouse of the size they envisioned to carry the fire department into the future.
Larry Colleton, a member of the district's board of fire commissioners, says the district reached out with a legal notice and letters to architects and engineering firms that it was looking to build a new firehouse. "When we sat down with Bob Mitchell of Mitchell Associates Architects, he pointed out to us that we didn't need to tear down our existing station, but would be able to preserve some of that fire house and its history," Colleton says. "Mitchell impressed all of us with his abilities and knowledge in giving us different options, and his use of technology to show us the many choices that we had in using the old station in a renovation and the addition of a brand new section."
Beukendaal Fire District is an all volunteer department mustering 60 firefighters out of its single station, and covering more than 10 square miles and 1,772 properties in the town of Glenville with a population of 27,000. The department runs a 2004 Rosenbauer engine, a 1995 Emergency Equipment Inc. pumper, a 1995 International 4WD front-mount rescue-pumper, and a Chevy Suburban emergency medical services (EMS) response vehicle. Its coverage area is a mix of suburban, commercial, rural, and light industrial areas, along with a 10 mile stretch of the Mohawk River.
Mitchell, a principal in the architectural firm, says the challenges he faced involved two earlier extensions that had been made to the existing station, one to the apparatus bays and the other to a members room. "We had to work with a concrete plank roof structure that was pretty low on the members room," Mitchell says, "and build a new station to the right of it, as well as keep the original apparatus bays working during construction of the new addition that would house the new apparatus bays and other facilities."
Mitchell says his firm built four new apparatus bays and new offices in front of the members room, with a new entry section while the department continued to operate its apparatus out of the two existing bays. "It was a pain for the members, but much better than going into temporary facilities," he notes, "which would have cost about $400,000. We compared that figure with the multiple mobilizati