RIVER FALLS — The demolition phase of the River Falls Fire Station renovation is underway, with reconstruction to follow in late April or early May.

The project was projected to come in at just over $10 million after the City Council approved three additional alternate options proposed at the Sept. 23 meeting. The base project includes a three-story hose tower, a second story build with a training area, storage and future use space, four new apparatus bays, an interior remodel of the current apparatus bays, undergrounding electric service, upsizing the water service line and improving exhaust systems.
“During the Sept. 23 River Falls City Council meeting, the bid for the project was awarded to BCI Construction. BCI submitted the lowest bid at $8.3 million for the base project. Additionally, the council approved three alternate options for the construction. The first alternate included the addition of a fifth apparatus bay. Finally, alternate number three included the addition of a health and wellness room in the renovated station, along with the new roof and fifth apparatus bay,” a city newsletter states.

The station remodel has been in the works for years, and the department is excited to see the renderings come to life.

“It’s been on the docket for a number of years, and, ultimately, back in the day the PD ended up getting moved up into their [Capital Improvement Plan] to build their new station,” Fire Chief Justin Wilson said. “With the Fire Station itself, this building was built in 1955 and it was starting to get older as well.”

Wilson said health and safety of the department was the top reason to bring on the remodel.

“The main improvements that we would look at would really be about health and safety,” Wilson said. “All of our trucks out here, these diesel trucks, when you start them up, all that diesel goes into the air… Wanting to make sure that we have a healthier, safer spot was one of the big reasons on looking to get out of this building and remodel.”

Wilson said the walls have gone from an off-white color to light brown over the years because of a lack of capable exhaust systems. While a change of address from Second Street was discussed, it was decided that keeping the central location in the city for both response times and ease for volunteers was the most ideal scenario.

River Falls has 54 volunteer or paid-per-call fire fighters, and Wilson said keeping them safe in turn keeps the community safe.

“Being able to have a department that is telling its members we care about you and we care about your safety and your health helps us keep that retention period. We get to retain more people, we get to have more members sign up,” Wilson said. “The more members we have, that means the more people that are able to come at different times throughout the day, throughout the weekend.”

Another expected response time improvement stems from the apparatus bay updates. Currently, trucks are stacked two-deep in the garage stalls, so to get to specific vehicles, others had to be moved out. The remodel will bring doors to both sides of the apparatus bay.

Overall, Wilson and the department have been thankful for an “outpouring” of support from both city administration and community members. With the building expected to be the home of the fire department for 50-plus years, Wilson said going through with all of the alternate additions at the same time as the base bid will save the city money in the long run.

“To be able to have your council and your community step up and say, ‘We appreciate being fiscally responsible and not adding all these things right away,’ but for them to also look at it and go, ‘Well, we need different things in the building, so it’s going to be smart for us to get them now,’... the forethought into that by the council was huge,” Wilson said. “Just the support that we have from city administration, city council, but then also the support we have from the community [means a lot].”