New Peninsula Fire Station Going Up!

MENLO PARK, CA — Fire Station 6, located at 700 Oak Grove Avenue in downtown Menlo Park, is almost ready to go up, literally! General Contractor Gonsalves & Stronck Construction Company has finished all of the preparation of the underground utilities, seismically rated concrete footings strengthening with reinforced steel rebar. On Friday, April 14 the contractor finished pouring and finishing the concrete slab floors for the new Fire Station.

This winters constant rain has delayed the project by about two months but the Contractor has recently managed to reduce that by about half. The Fire Station itself is still on track to be completed by the end of the year.

In recent years, Fire Station Six has become the Fire District's second busiest of its network of seven Stations located in Atherton, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Unincorporated County Areas. Fire Station 2, located in East Palo Alto, remains the District's busiest Fire Station and was completed last year after being completely rebuilt and enlarged.

The Fire District has methodically set aside funds in dedicated reserves to rebuild both Stations and purchase adjoining properties to enlarge and modernize each facility over the last decade.

Fire Chief Schapelhouman said, "once we identified the need, staff presented the Fire Board with a very disciplined plan to set aside funds to replace four of our seven Stations that were already sixty years old and in bad shape. We started with a reserve of 6 million dollars and its taken us about ten years per Station project to achieve that goal".

It wasn't easy, the District started during a World wide recession and with contentious labor negotiations with its firefighters. As unpopular and painful as it was at times, the Fire Board said it was their responsibility to adopt a path forward for Fire Station replacement.

Prior to the recession, the District achieved AA+ bond rating, the highest available to a Special District and had planned to simultaneously rebuild three of the oldest fire stations and remodel a newly purchased administrative office building using a limited bonds offering.

Bonds were used to pay off and remodel the new administrative office building, but as the recession got worse and worse the Fire Board moved to a very conservative and much more careful management of its funds, primarily property taxes, which would then be used to incrementally rebuild fire stations first starting in phases, and then one at a time.

"Essentially, the Fire Board made the decision to move to a "save as you go methodology" and while they specifically told me to keep moving forward, they also said that we were NOT going to ask the tax payers for additional money, or incur additional debt and we specifically needed to live within our means", the Chief said.

Regarding Fridays activities, "we have been very pleased with the quality of work and overall workmanship of our Contractor. We are very excited about the next phase of this project as the steel frame and walls will literally start to go up so the community can start to see the progress of their new Fire Station", the Chief said.

Station 6 was determined to still be in a strategic location and will soon house more firefighters and larger apparatus that will directly serve local portions of Menlo Park and Atherton for the next 60 to 70 years.

The timing of the station's completion and change of apparatus configuration to a combination Engine/Aerial Ladder Truck, called a Quint, will occur next fiscal year increasing daily staffing from three to four firefighters in advance of most of the new proposed larger and denser construction and expansion projects proposed for downtown and along El Camino Real.

— SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION BY: Menlo Park Fire Protection District / IMAGE CREDIT: Peter Mootz, Action Photography