City hires company to study station 2
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:04 p.m., February 21, 2008
Updated 01:04 p.m., February 21, 2008
The cost to study the best solution for Fire Station No. 2 will be in the neighborhood of what the city estimated it would be. In fact, it will cost a little less.
At Wednesday night’s city commission action meeting, the commission accepted a proposal by Treanor Architects of Topeka to conduct a study of the outdated, cramped and structurally questionable 29-year-old fire station at 1415 Industrial Road.
Treanor will evaluate the existing conditions of the building systems, the cause of the damage, and the needs and costs of three options the city has: Building a new station on the existing site, renovating the current station or building a new Station at 1220 Hatcher St.
The cost of Treanor’s study is expected to be less than $10,000. At a previous city work session, City Manager Matt Zimmerman estimated that a study of Station 2 would cost $15,000 to $17,000.
“It’s in the ballpark of our guesstimate, so I really wasn’t that surprised,” Zimmerman said. “The thing that’s a relief is that it’s not $22,000, not that I thought it would. ... I’m certainly glad it’s not more than our guesstimate. It’s always nice when it’s less.”
The city mailed requests for proposals to nine firms, and four responded with bids. The three other bids ranged from $11,400 (plus expenses) to $37,881.
Fire Chief Jack Taylor appeared at Wednesday’s meeting to speak on behalf of accepting the Treanor bid. Taylor told the commission the city owed it to the community to identify what had gone wrong with Station 2 and what was needed to fix it.
Previously documented problems at Station 2 include uneven settling, cracks, mold resulting from inadequate ventilation, leaks in the roof, a garage that isn’t big enough for the growing size of modern firetrucks, and an insufficient number of equipment bays. Taylor said the building continues to deteriorate.
“One of the things that we continually have to do is repair the roof, particularly where the office and personnel area abuts the apparatus room,” he said. “That seems to pull away fairly regularly, and where that interface is on the roof, we have to repair that fairly frequently. So that continues to pull away.
Cracks continue to develop in parts of the floor and walls there in the building.”
Commissioner Jeff Longbine said the study would be money well spent because, in addition to determining how deep the problems at station 2 were, it would also determine “if we do have foundation problems, by putting it off, are we going to increase our costs later with further deterioration?”
Treanor’s study is expected to take four to six weeks.
Latest on layoffs
In Zimmerman’s report on city activities at the end of the meeting, he updated commissioners on the latest efforts to help those affected by the Tyson layoffs. Zimmerman said the National Teachers Hall of Fame board has agreed to allow the city to use its building as the public’s “one-stop shop” for all needs related to the crisis. Agencies that have indicated they would provide staff at the one-stop shop, he said, include Social and Rehabilitation Services, the United Way, the Salvation Army, Lyon County Community Health Center, the Mental Heath Center of East Central Kansas and SOS.
Zimmerman said he anticipated the city would need the building for three to six months. He said he met with leaders in Wichita last week regarding how they handled past job-loss crises in the aviation industry. Wichita used a one-stop shop facility three times for such crises; one of those times, it was open for two years.
“Again, I want to emphasize, we may end up not even needing it. We don’t know yet,” Zimmerman said. “But again, as I’ve talked about, you plan worst-case scenario, you start to get those in place and then you implement it as the need is determined.”
Zimmerman said the three-day Kansas Works fair at the Lyon County Fairgrounds, which ended Wednesday, was very successful, with more than 1,000 people attending over the three days to learn about various programs and classes available to help displaced workers and their families. The fair followed up last Saturday’s Job/Community Fair at the Flint Hills Technical College.
For now, Zimmerman said, the community needs to begin collecting food for the Salvation Army and donating to the Lyon County Emergency Relief Fund. He asked that the community begin building reserves, particularly over the next month, to help support the city’s crisis effort.
In other activities Wednesday, the commission:
• Approved the use of a new city logo, which features a shooting star running over the city’s name spelled in large block letters. The logo is intended to be used by all city agencies and will replace the current star/snowflake logo, which was adopted in 1983.
• Approved a conditional use permit to allow a bed and breakfast inn at 612 W. 12th Ave. The applicants for the permit, James and Billie Roach and Aaron Sewell, are selling the property and requested the permit to make it more marketable. About nine rooms would be available for rent.
• Approved a request of Jeff and Tracy Herrick to change the zoning status of four lots in Lester Matlocks First Addition to the City of Emporia. The zoning change from C-3 general commercial district to R-3 high density residential will allow construction of apartments on the vacant, undeveloped property.
• Approved resolutions suspending timed city parking for three upcoming events at the Civic Auditorium: The Class 1A substate basketball tournament from Feb. 28-March 1, the Class 6A state basketball tournament from March 5-8, and the Evco Trade Show on March 26.
• Authorized Vice-Mayor Bob Agler to sign a proclamation declaring Feb. 25-29 as National TRIO Week. TRIO, a group of programs that assist economically and socially disadvantaged students in attending college, has three programs at Emporia State University. Agler signed the proclamation because Mayor Julie Johnson was not present at Wednesday’s meeting.
• Conducted a public hearing on expanding the boundaries of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, but no one spoke during the hearing. The city plans to expand the program to include all of C of E Drive, which would make Kenyon Hall and the KVOE building eligible for the program’s tax rebates.