Kelly Rocheleau

The Citizen, Auburn, N.Y.

(MCT)

Oct. 29—AUBURN — Former Auburn assistant fire chiefs Bob Sloan and Ed Laraway said they remember discussions about the Auburn Fire Department getting a new building when they joined the department in the 1970s. Decades later, that wish has become a reality.

Sloan and Laraway, who have been retired since 2006 and 2004, respectively, were among the more than 150 people on Thursday who attended a ribbon-cutting for the Auburn Public Safety Building at 31 Seminary St., the fire department’s new station. Other emergency management services will also be housed at the site.

After the ceremony, Sloan and Laraway said they have fond memories of the department’s old location, 23 Market St., which the department has used since the 1930s. They both noted that with bigger equipment over the years, the department outgrew the current location when they both retired in the mid-2000s. Gazing out at the new facility and the fire trucks within it, they said they were impressed.

“Hope it lasts as long as the old one did,” Sloan said.

The fire department isn’t fully moved out of the Market Street location, but that building will still be used by the Auburn Police Department and the new City of Auburn Ambulance Service.

Auburn City Manager Jeff Dygert Dygert said the project came in at a “significantly lower cost than expected.” He said that there have been challenges with supply chains, gathering the appropriate materials and getting the needed workforce together, but that the project management team saw the project through those issues.

Fire chief Mark Fritz said the Market Street building has served the department well over the last 90 years, but noted equipment has became larger and heavier, calls for service have increased and the number for services AFD provides have increased over the decades. He said the new location is larger and has a training room, decontamination rooms, laundry rooms and more.

Fritz said after the ceremony he hopes the fire department will be fully moved into the new spot by the end of next week, but it could be the following week or the week after that.

“Things are moving along here, he said. “I’m hopeful that potentially by the end of next week we will be operating out of here.”

At the ceremony, state Sen. John Mannion praised the efforts to get the building made.

“This is a new public safety building, and is a triumph of state and local planning and partnership. Projects like this don’t happen by accident, and they don’t happen without hard work,” he said.

After Fritz cut the ribbon, members of the public were able to look around the facility.

The $10 million project was funded through the city via borrowing, $2 million from a state regional consolidated grant program and $1.2 million from the state Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The undertaking has been in the making for years. In 2015, an operations, facility and needs assessment for the Auburn fire and police departments identified various inefficiencies with the current location both departments are housed in. The Auburn City Council approved the purchase of the Seminary Street property from Seminary Commons, LLC for $990,000 in September 2019.

Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau.

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