The Shorewood Plan Commission recommended the village board sell the firehouse on a 5-1 vote at its meeting on March 27. The village board briefly discussed the sale in closed session April 2. Trustees are tentatively scheduled to continue that discussion at an April 16 meeting.   

The North Shore Fire Department currently pays Shorewood $6,600 per month to rent 9,000 square feet in the 19,000-square-foot building.

For NSFD to continue leasing the space, Fire Chief Robert Whitaker said the village would have to make a significant investment in the aging building.

The building will total over 9,000 square feet including living quarters with six rooms, and an apparatus bay with six large overheard doors total, according to GSG Architecture project manager Britney Sulzen. It’s the fourth station in Casper the firm has worked on, said Sulzen.  

The projected cost will be at $3.3 million and is paid by the one-cent tax, said Sulzen. It will be completed in late January of 2019.

The new Station 74 is proposed for 53rd Street and Woodsonia Drive; it will be roughly 9,000 square-feet.

It will feature six individual bunkrooms, a fitness room, a gear washing station, an expansive storage area and a community/training room, among other necessities and amenities. The new station was much-needed in western Shawnee because response times to the area are currently nine minutes or longer. With the new station, those times will drop down to four to five minutes. Those few minutes will make all the difference when it comes to fires and medical emergencies, Mattox said.