The Delray Beach fire station on Andrews Avenue will have to handle a greater workload once the city no longer has a Highland Beach station. File photo
By Larry Barszewski
Plans are in the works for a new beach fire station to serve Delray Beach’s barrier island communities, but it could be years before the replacement for the current Andrews Avenue station is built.
In addition, the city has hired a consultant to help determine how best to replace the services provided by its fire rescue crews in Highland Beach, which handle about 800 city calls a year. The city will no longer have crews there once Highland Beach starts up its own fire department in May.
Fire Chief Keith Tomey told a Dec. 6 meeting of the Beach Property Owners Association at the Opal Grand Resort that the city has applied for a state resiliency grant to cover part of the cost of a new Andrews Avenue station.
The city’s rough estimate for the replacement station is $15 million, and officials hope the grant will cover half that amount. The city also expects to use money from the $100 million public safety bonds referendum approved by city voters in March to cover some of its cost.
While many fire station projects were mentioned in the bond referendum, it’s unclear how much will be available for individual projects, given that the police station itself is expected to take up about $80 million of the total bond.
The city is seeking to tap Resilient Florida grant money because of the location of the station, a block in from the ocean. The current station has reached the end of its useful life, in part because it is “in a highly corrosive environment which has experienced significant degradation of the building due to this exposure,” according to the grant application. The station is also vulnerable to storm surge and rainfall-induced flooding, it said.
The building was “constructed in 1990; prior to the strict revisions of the building code that occurred after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in 1992,” the application said. “The anticipated outcome of this project is a new fire station that is fully hardened to withstand a CAT 5 hurricane and more resistant to the types of damage that result from hurricane force winds.”
The new station, which is expected to grow from the existing 8,800-square-foot structure to one that’s 11,200 square feet, will be a challenge to build because of limited space at the current site on the north side of Atlantic Avenue. It may even include underground parking for station employees as a way of saving space, Tomey said.
He also envisions adding a ladder truck crew to the expanded station. The city has a ladder truck on the barrier island in Highland Beach, but that will go away when the town’s contract ends.
Tomey told residents they would see very little difference in service come May. While the city-operated station in Highland Beach has served as an emergency backup for city calls on the barrier island, Tomey said the city’s station on West Atlantic Avenue is closer to some of the barrier island communities.
Response times to the barrier island from the West Atlantic Avenue station should be about the same as from the Highland Beach station, he said. However, a ladder truck or rescue vehicle coming from the mainland could be stopped by a passing train on the Florida East Coast Railway tracks or by a raised drawbridge on Atlantic over the Intracoastal Waterway.
“I want to put a ladder truck there eventually,” Tomey said of the proposed replacement Station 112. “We’re going to need a bigger station to hold three apparatus.”
Regarding the changes ahead after the city’s contract ends with Highland Beach, Tomey said his department has hired the International Public Safety Data Institute as a consultant on the issue.
“We hired them to look at the impact of losing Highland Beach. What is that going to look like? What is it going to look like with us losing a ladder truck and a rescue truck and then leaving us with 800 calls to answer?” Tomey said.
“Usually when they’re coming into Delray Beach, it’s a last resort, nobody else can respond; we have to have them come respond,” Tomey said of the city crews that have been stationed in Highland Beach. “So now, knowing that we’ve got nobody else to respond to those 800 calls, we’ve got to figure out something. Those are some of the things this consultant is going to be helping us with.”
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