The City of Port Huron will be spending nearly a half million dollars with an architecture firm for the design of a new central fire station. The proposal, from Partners in Architecture of Mount Clemens, was a late addition to Monday night’s city council meeting and would the first step in moving the city’s main fire station to a new location. It would also result in a consolidation of the city’s current fire stations from three stations to two.
Port Huron Fire Chief Corey Nicholson says two proposed sites were studied, a site near the Blue Water Bridge, and a location on 10th Street between White and Chestnut at the present day White Park. “We referenced (the sites) against a standandard called NFPA 1710 which says that in four minutes or less, we need to be on scene 90% of the time,” said Nicholson.
Chief Nicholson said the White Park site is the optimal location for a new central fire station, which would serve as a replacement for both the current central station on River Street near SC4 and station number four on 24th Street. The design proposal also includes minor renovations to fire station three on Sanborn Street, which will need to be kept, due to the findings of the response time study.
The $472,000 dollar bid was approved unanimously Monday by Port Huron City Council. City Manager James Freed estimated cost of building a new central fire station to be anywhere between $7 and $10 million. Freed says Monday’s action doesn’t commit council to building a new fire station, but stated that now would be “a remarkably good time to build a fire station.” He adds that it would be more financially responsible than continuing to repair the current building which has been plagued with structural issues.
