The quest for a new permanent fire station headquarters in Chehalis is one step closer to being complete.
The Chehalis City Council accepted the site preparation work for an interim fire station as complete and authorized city staff to finish the administrative closeout of the project during Monday’s city council meeting.
In advance of a new permanent fire station headquarters on the corner of Chamber Way and State Street, Chehalis previously designated one of three parcels associated with the project as a site for an interim fire station on Sitka Street, but work needed to be done to the site to make it functional.
According to council meeting agenda documents, to make the interim fire station a reality, the city needed to do the project in three parts: site preparation, the construction of a temporary apparatus bay and the movement and improvement of a mobile home to serve as crew quarters and administrative offices for the temporary/interim station.
The site preparation part of the project consisted of ground excavation work, the importing of fill material and rock, site grading, installation of utility hookups and Sitka Road improvements.
With the city council accepting that the site preparation component of the interim fire station project as complete, project managers can set their sights on the second phase of the project — the temporary apparatus bay work — which is near completion. Now, it’s just a matter of getting the administrative work done on the temporary apparatus bay to close out that portion of the project as well.
As for the third phase of the interim fire station project, the city council authorized City Manager Jill Anderson on Dec. 14, 2020, to purchase an existing mobile home from Cascade Trader for $63,650 to then be relocated to the parcel of land being used as the interim fire station.
The movement and installation of the mobile home for the temporary crew quarters are expected to be complete in May.
The entire project for the new permanent fire station headquarters has been in the works for a number of years, with the city council approving a selection of architectural firm Rice Fergus Miller to provide design and construction services for it on March 2, 2020.
In July 2020, the city council approved a bond ordinance for $1,525,000 for funding the land purchase for the project, which included costs associated with the temporary crew quarters and apparatus bay.
Then on Nov. 23, 2020, the city council awarded a contract for the site preparation work for the interim fire station to Barcott Construction for $257,278.18, a price tag that includes sales tax and contingency costs.
Several modifications to the site preparation part of the project resulted in an increase in project costs from the original bid amount of $223,718.18 (before sales tax and contingency costs) to an estimated $373,638.89 — an increase of $149,920.71. There were subsequent change orders and other adjustments that brought the final cost of the site preparation part of the interim fire station project to $518,420.79.
