Traverse City (MI) Seeks Fire Station Designs for Two Buildings

Jordan Travis
The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
(TNS)

Mar. 21—TRAVERSE CITY — Both Traverse City Fire Department stations need work, and now the city commission wants architectural services for plans to replace the buildings.

Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to move ahead with a request for proposals for those services. They acted on recommendations from a subcommittee examining how and if the fire department could become the city’s primary ambulance transport provider.

Those recommendations in turn stem from an architect’s assessment after examining how to add gender-neutral personnel quarters to both stations, according to a memo from Mayor Richard Lewis.

He pointed to Environment Architects noting it would cost an estimated $321,000 to add 420 square feet to Station 1 and 295 square feet to Station 2. But the firm recommended a larger overhaul for both stations given the condition of both.

Station 1 is on West Front Street and a block east of Division Street, and Station 2 is on East Eighth Street across from Oakwood Cemetery, maps show.

Fire Chief Jim Tuller said his research showed fire stations are typically built with a 50- to 75-year design life, and both stations are past or near the 50-year mark. Station 2 was built in 1968 and Station 1 in 1974.

“They’re still here due largely to the work of the personnel that have worked there for many, many years taking care of the little things,” he said.

City Manager Marty Colburn echoed Lewis, saying that months of investigations into how the stations could be added to or improved ended with the conclusion that it would be better to start new.

A draft request for proposals would seek architectural services to build a new Station 1 that can house eight 24-hour personnel and eight personnel working 40 hours per week. The current building has space for four and four. A new station would also have room for 11 vehicles as opposed to 5.

At Station 2, the current building houses two 24-hour personnel and three vehicles, while the request for proposals contemplates a replacement that would house six 24-hour personnel and four vehicles, plus four equipment trailers.

That’ll allow the department to have enough firefighter paramedics available to respond to the kind of fires they more commonly handle, Tuller said. It would also shrink the reliance on neighboring fire departments to provide mutual aid.

Plus, larger stations would give the department the room it would need should city leaders decide to take over as primary transporter for ambulance services, Lewis said.

Currently, city firefighter paramedics respond to all medical calls in city limits and, if first on scene, work to stabilize a patient until current primary transporter Mobile Medical Response arrives, as previously reported. The Saginaw-based provider takes anyone needing hospitalization where city ambulances serve as backup unless MMR is not available or waiting is not an option.

Commissioner Tim Werner wanted to be sure any fire station designs would be for electrified buildings — no fossil fuel-powered heat, for example. Colburn took the board through a draft electrification policy for city owned- and -controlled buildings that would require all-electric heating, ventilation and air conditioning, among other things.

That policy might not be ready for a vote but Werner said he wanted to be sure the city’s working on building designs that follow the idea.

Colburn responded the plan is to find out how much electrified fire stations would cost, including adding solar to the designs.

Lewis said he hoped to have a better understanding of how much the stations would cost — a feasibility study completed for the fire department in mid-2022 estimated it would cost $4,675,000 to build an 11,000-square-foot new Station 1 and $3,015,000 to build a new 6,700-square-foot Station 2.

Paying for two new fire stations would, no doubt, require a millage, Lewis said.

“I’m not going to kid anybody, it’s going to take a millage,” he said.

It’s possible city voters could weigh two tax questions in the future, one for an operating millage to fund an expanded department acting as primary ambulance transporter and another to pay for the new stations to house it.

BROWN BRIDGE

Commissioners also voted 6-1 on an application for a $2,352,200 Natural Resources Trust Fund grant to add 528 acres to the Brown Bridge Quiet Area, with Werner voting against.

Rotary Camps & Services of Traverse City is selling 300 acres from its shuttered Greilick Outdoor Recreation and Education Center, while the Elmer J Mueller Trust is selling 228 acres around Spring Lake, as previously reported. Both pieces of land are north of Brown Bridge Quiet Area’s current boundaries, which currently encompass around 1,310 acres.

The city-owned parkland is in East Bay Township and the site of the former Brown Bridge Dam and the pond it retained. The Boardman/Ottaway River twists through the property and a trail loop crosses it in two places. Grand Traverse Conservation District manages it under contract.

To expand the park, the city could use $746,245 from the Brown Bridge Trust Fund, which has around $12 million in oil and gas royalties from wells within the park’s current boundaries. Spending out of the fund requires city voters’ approval. Commissioners would have until 4 p.m. on Aug. 15 to approve ballot language.

Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy is working with the city on the potential acquisition, and Executive Director Glen Chown told commissioners voters have supported plenty of other park-related requests before by margins exceeding 70 percent.

“Why not ask the voters again if this is still a priority? They deserve the right to decide,” he said.

People crowded the meeting chambers and overflow seating outside, with several speaking in favor. They gave plenty of reasons — Bill Scharf, a retired biology professor from University of Minnesota, said it would protect endangered and threatened species he documented there in a 2007 report to the Boardman River Dams Committee, and Steve Largent, conservation team coordinator for Grand Traverse Conservation District, said adding more trails will help spread out an increasing user base.

Jim Carruthers, the city’s former mayor, said he supported the idea but thinks the city should look for a better deal and more buy-in. For one, he suggested Rotary Camps & Services of Traverse City donate the land outright while still keeping its mineral rights. For another, East Bay Township, Grand Traverse County and the land conservancy should chip in so it doesn’t all fall to the city.

Werner said he believes city commissioners are overlooking questions of whether it’s the best expenditure of money, how much it’ll actually do for conservation and climate change and how the addition rates in context of surrounding property uses.

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