The space crunch is over at the borough firehouse. Roughly eight months after borough council awarded a $426,000 contract to Perry's General Contracting to build a two-floor, 3,300-plus-square-foot addition onto the South Blakely Street building, firefighters moved into their the new space.
The borough offset about three-quarters of the project’s cost with a $345,000 state gaming grant awarded in early 2013.
Council plans to dedicate the facility to the late Councilman Salvatore Verrastro, who served from 2007 until he died Feb. 29
Verrastro was council’s liaison to the Fire Department, advocated for the renovation, worked with firefighters on a borough committee to buy a nearly $1 million firetruck, and wrote grants to get about $110,000 worth of new equipment for the department over the last few years.
The upgrades after several years of relative austerity during Dunmore’s budget crisis provided a psychological boost, firefighters said.