A fire station built in the 1960's is causing problems for the city of Windom as fire trucks continue to get larger.
Steve Nasby, the Windom City Administrator, says, "We can see there's not a lot of space for firefighters in full turn-out gear to get into access panels to their trucks to load supplies, things like that."
The 4,100 square foot building was built over 50 years ago, but modern equipment is now pushing the boundaries of what the facility can store.
Corey Maricle, the Windom Mayor and Volunteer Fire Fighter, says, "Actually, if we have snow we have to shovel out in front of the door before we take it out otherwise it'll hit the ceiling. So it's pretty important that we do something different."
To compensate, the water tanker is stored off-site and additional buildings have been built to house some of the vehicles.
The city has drawn up a proposed fire and ambulance building with Brunton architects at an estimated cost of $4.57 million.
Nasby says, "It was a trade-off there that we were having to make, but, yeah, there was a number of citizens that were not happy with that."
The city has $1 million from the Ambulance Fund.
Windom is seeking $2.2 million in state bonding funds and is currently on the Senate bonding bill, but is still seeking to get the project added to the House and Governor's bonding bills.