Boyceville fire board holds kick-off meeting for new fire station

By LeAnn R. Ralph

BOYCEVILLE  —  The Boyceville Community Fire District Board has held a kick-off meeting with architects from Five Bugles Design for building a new fire station in Boyceville.

Steve Gausman and Dave Cihasky from Five Bugles, a division of Architectural Design Group out of Eau Claire, met with members of the Boyceville fire board February 8 to discuss planning for the new fire station.

The Boyceville fire district has not yet purchased any land for the new fire station, but board members have been investigating the possibility of building the fire hall on land owned by the village next to the airport.

Before work on the design can begin, the architects need to know the size of the building, the amount of money the fire board would like to spend and whether it would be a masonry or a pre-engineered metal building, Gausman said.

Building a brick fire station would cost about twice as much as a metal building, he noted.

A masonry building generally costs around $200 per square foot, and a pre-engineered metal building generally costs around $100 to $110 per square foot, Gausman said.

Although the exact size of the new fire station has not yet been determined, the building is expected to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 to 15,000 square feet.

Based on 13,000 square feet, the cost of the fire station, depending upon the materials used, would be anywhere from $1.3 million to $2.6 million.

The cost of the new fire station would be paid by the municipalities in the fire district, and the amount would be based on the percentage of property value in each village and township.

For example, if the new fire station cost $2.6 million, and a member municipality contained 20 percent of the property value in the fire district, the cost to that municipality would be $520,000. 

The Boyceville fire district includes the villages of Boyceville and Wheeler and the Towns of Hay River, New Haven, Stanton, Tiffany and Sherman.

Gausman and Cihasky assured fire board members that they would be willing to design whatever kind of fire station the board selected, although they both noted that a masonry fire station would last longer than a pre-engineered metal building and would still look good 50 or 75 years from now.

At some point, somewhere along the line, someone on the fire board said that the budget for construction costs would be $2.5 million, Gausman said.

Several fire board members noted that a budget had not yet been set for the new fire hall.

If the fire board selects a pre-engineered metal building, the project would be bid in two packages, one for the metal building and then another bid package six to eight weeks later for the interior of the building, Gausman said.

The architects will design around the kind of pre-engineered metal building that the fire board selects. Each manufacturer of the pre-engineered metal buildings has its own design for the buildings, Cihasky said.

Charles Maves, representative for the Town of Sherman, wondered about a pole barn building for the fire station.

The longevity for a pole barn, as opposed to a pre-engineered metal building, is not as good, Cihasky said.

Building a pole barn would cost about $75 per square foot, Gausman said. 

A pole-barn of the kind used in agriculture would be bid the same way an a pre-engineered metal building, Cihasky said.

Schedule

Gausman and Cihasky wondered about the fire district’s schedule for building a new fire station, noting that they could have the design ready for construction this summer.

“We all have to go back to our boards. It will take a while,” said Rich Monn, chair of the fire district’s five-year planning committee and representative for the Town of Stanton. 

Presumably each village and town must approve the project before the fire station can be built, and each village board and town board must make provisions for paying for their share of the fire station. 

Gausman and Cihasky said they would be willing to make presentations to each of the villages and towns in the fire district. 

Priorities

Two items that are the most important in building a fire station are that the apparatus bay functions well and that there is a training room, Gausman said.

The next step will be to get the measurements of the fire department’s trucks and other equipment so that the information can be used in the design, he said.

While it is true that the size of firefighting apparatus has grown bigger over the years, a 14×14-foot overhead door will be adequate for any kind of fire equipment developed over the next 50 years, Gausman said.

Five Bugles will work with the fire chief to determine the program statement for the fire department and will do a space needs study and review the existing information, he said.

Once the fire board has agreed on a size for the new fire hall, Five Bugles can start designing the building and determining the building’s components, and then the fire board can determine a budget, Cihasky said. 

After the budget has been set, Cihasky recommended the fire board use Ehlers or Robert W. Baird & Company as financial consultants to figure out how much the fire station would cost the townships and villages and to obtain suggestions on how to finance the fire hall.

Examples

Thorp has put up a pole shed for their new fire hall and Marathon City has built a masonry structure, Gausman and Cihasky told the Boyceville fire board.

Amery and New Auburn also have recently built new fire halls, and Chippewa Falls is in the process of constructing a new building, they said.

Gausman and Cihasky suggested that Boyceville firefighters and members of the fire board might want to tour some recently-constructed fire stations to gather ideas for what they might want to build in Boyceville. 

The next step will be to schedule a meeting with the fire chief, firefighters and any fire board members who want to attend to assess the fire department’s current equipment to determine how many square feet are needed for Boyceville’s new fire station, Cihasky said.

After the square footage has been determined, Five Bugles will meet with the fire board to give estimates on pre-engineered, masonry and pole shed fire stations, he said.

The Boyceville fire board can then set a budget for the new fire station, Cihasky said. 

The fire board also must purchase a site for the new station, he said, noting that obtaining a site will be necessary before more planning can be done.

Five Bugles Design is expected to meet with the Boyceville fire board again within a few weeks.