The City of Chehalis will finally take a look at fixing up its traditional fire station on Northwest Park Street, which was last occupied in 2019.
The Chehalis City Council voted in favor of a resolution Monday night that could kick off a feasibility study on the historic brick building first constructed just over 100 years ago in 1925.
The resolution permits Chehalis Fire Chief Adam Fulbright and Chehalis City Manager Stacy Denham to negotiate the final contract with architecture firm CSHQA before returning to the council with a final cost estimate.
While presenting to the council, Fulbright said he expects the study to cost the city upward of a $140,000 estimate the city most recently received on the work before moving forward with the recent annexation effort.
“Back then, we were looking at $145,000, and so probably a little bit more than that with inflation,” Fulbright said.
The chief added that he believes the firm’s prior knowledge of the Park Street building could also shorten the timeline of the study.
The initial approval passed with support from six of the seven city council members. Councillor John Six voted against the resolution. During discussion, he said he was concerned about starting the process of looking into the 100-year-old fire station too early.
“If there's no deadline on why we need to do this evaluation, I don't see it as necessary yet,” Six said.
Six was not opposed to the study in general, but said he wanted to see more progress in efforts to establish a south end substation that would serve the recently annexed portions of the city before moving forward.
A settlement with nearby Lewis County Fire Protection Districts 5 and 6 that diffused a potential lawsuit and secured their support for annexation stipulates that the city must establish a functioning substation in the annexed territory no later than 2031. The station must have a minimum of two active staffers on the clock at all times.
According to Six, the city recently sent a letter to Fire District 6 to discuss purchasing its station at the intersection of Jackson Highway and Southwest 21st Street.
“I believe that we're still in the process of figuring out what location we're going to end up within the south,” Six said. “If we are, my understanding is we sent out a letter to District 6 to find out if they were willing to sell us or whatever their fire station, and that could end up being a location, and we would have our other location up north.”
Fulbright recognized the concerns around annexation and a south end substation, but separated the north end station as a different problem and referred to the station situation as “an issue since before I started.”
The Chehalis Fire Department vacated the Park Street station in 2019 after discovering significant asbestos in the building. As a temporary solution, the city constructed the existing north end station located on Northwest Sitka Street and completed construction in 2022.
Since then, the department has relied on that temporary station along with mobile trailers for day-to-day operations while it has explored options for establishing a larger station on the north side of town.
“That facility is not adequate for long-term service,” Fulbright said. “We need to study and find out what our options are with this north end site. The current location is a horrible response to the core of our response area.”
Mayor Tony Ketchum recalled during council discussion that the city had decided to study the Park Street building in hopes that it could avoid constructing an entirely new station and save some money along the way.
According to Fulbright, a 2023 study on constructing a new station estimated the cost at $38 million.
“We think renovation of Park Street, we might be able to come in significantly under that,” he added.
Denham added that he believes the city needs to take action on the Park Street station even if that means deciding not to renovate the building and instead opting to sell.
“We have to decide what we're going to do with Park Street,” Denham said. “If we're going to keep it, we're going to renovate it, or we're going to get rid of it. One of those things has to occur. The only way we can do that is to actually look at it and see if it's actually viable.”
The 100-year-old Park Street fire station was completed in 1925 and, according to a brief history of the department on the City of Chehalis website, was also used by the city's police department and public works department, all while also housing the Chehalis Civic Auditorium.
For more information on the history of the Chehalis Fire Department, visit https://www.ci.chehalis.wa.us/fire/page/our-history.
