[slideshow_deploy id=’899′]
BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—The architect hired to evaluate the township’s Volunteer Fire Department headquarters says the structure is cramped, substandard, and dangerous, and recommends tearing it down and building new.
And the Township Volunteer Ambulance Corps wants in.
Architect and longtime firefighter Robbie Conley presented four concepts to the mayor and council Aug. 6 on fixing problems he found in operations for firefighting, administration, and livability at the firehouse.
He gave estimates of $4 million for a minimal update to the firehouse to approximately $6 million for a joint firehouse/EMS facility sited on a new footprint east of the existing building, at 656 Washington Ave.
Two days later, Aug. 8, the Township of Washington Volunteer Ambulance Corps ratified a vote to leave their digs, at 354 Hudson Ave., and pitch in with the fire department for a state-of-the-art fire/EMS center.
“It’s a good story, a positive move forward for the corps. It’ll be a good future for us,” Ambulance Corps Capt. Rich Miras told Pascack Press on Aug. 9.
Miras, a 25-year veteran of the corps, said members agreed roughly 21-12 to join the fire department in planning.
“It’ll be a bigger facility, more modern, more room for personnel. And it’ll be more visible and help us recruit new members, young members” he said. “Right now we’re pretty well tucked away. Some people don’t even know we exist.”
He said some members who voted no argued their current base has served them well since the corps set up shop in March 1957.
Others reportedly were concerned about the difficulty of getting to the firehouse, given the troublesome intersection of Washington Avenue and Pascack Road.
Intersection improvement in the works
Perhaps that worry will be short lived. The intersection, which many say is a top priority, is set to be improved after plans languished for more than a decade, according to Council President and engineer Michael DeSena, who was just added as liaison to the team working on the Bergen County project.
DeSena told Pascack Press that finished intersection plans would be in the hands of Township Director of Engineering Paul Azzolina on Friday, Aug. 10, just after press time, and that these would be in the council’s hands to review soon after.
DeSena said the intersection, a campaign focus in the 2017 general election, would be improved in 2019.
“It’s not going to be an issue after that,” he said.
He said he found Conley’s firehouse presentation to be “terrific,” and predicted the council would back one of the concepts given.
“We absolutely need a major update, an overhaul, at the firehouse. One of those concepts has to be implemented,” DeSena said.
Should the corps move, he said, its current site would be pressed into service providing needed parking for the Golden Seniors and others at town hall.
[slideshow_deploy id=’899′]
Town faces spending decisions
Meanwhile, Councilman Michael Ullman said several big-ticket items are coming up for the governing body to weigh.
In addition to the firehouse, which for the sake of argument he pegged at $6 million, the Fire Department’s ladder truck is at the end of its useful life. The department projects replacing both the ladder truck, at $1.5 million, and an engine/pumper truck at $700,000, in 2019, he said.
As well, the Police Department anticipates it needs to upgrade its radio system—for all emergency services—at a projected cost of $800,000 in 2019.
“That $8.9 million does not account for the ongoing roads program beyond 2018, the Pascack/Washington intersection improvement, or other capital purchases planned in the 2018 budget’s three-year capital program,” Ullman said.
He noted as well that the township recently rolled over $6 million in short-term borrowing.
“This will need to be addressed as part a debt plan for the township. This $14.9 million has a yet to be determined impact on taxpayers,” he said.
If the firehouse is rebuilt, it would be the most significant local municipal facilities undertaking in some time. It would be expected to protect the township and—through mutual aid—its neighbors for the lion’s share of the 21st century.
It also would eclipse renovations needed at the police and municipal facilities headquarters where claims of neglect surfaced in spring 2017.
Separately, a long-term study is said to be on the horizon for the management of the town’s recreation areas, notably Memorial Field.
[slideshow_deploy id=’899′]
Firehouse said dangerous for crews, ‘could affect response time’
The firehouse, from 1951, started as one story and had three bays leading out to an ample apron. Two more bays and a gambrel roof (accommodating a second floor) were added later.
Conley said its biggest problems in 2018 are its site, where its five bays empty out onto busy Washington Avenue; its close quarters, where trucks can barely clear each other and the walls; its lack of decontamination facilities; its lack of clearly defined and secure offices and storage; and its lack of showers, bunk rooms, and lockers.
With communities asking more of first responders, “the lack of essential spaces and the inability to accommodate the basic necessities of today’s firehouse is interfering with operations and in turn may be increasing response times,” he said.
He did not evaluate the department’s actual response times in suggesting this, he told Pascack Press.
Conley said a new facility, housing volunteers 24/7, would serve the township well for 50 to 75 years.
“You do have a nice piece of property there, and a decent space, but unfortunately, unless you were to move the property 90 degrees, I think you’d have a little problem with drive-through bays,” he said.
The firehouse—the township’s evacuation site for emergencies—also suffers with cracks and heating issues, though this was beyond the scope of the facility needs study.
Conley, mayor of Woodbury Heights in Gloucester County, has 36 years of experience in fire services—he was the fire captain of Woodbury Heights—and 23 years of experience as an emergency medical technician.
His firm specializes in the design of emergency service facilities, though he also does a great deal of other municipal, school, and commercial design work, he told Pascack Press.
His firm designed Montvale’s new $5.6 million firehouse, a state-of-the-art two-story red and yellow 16,000-square-foot structure built to last at least 80 years.
An open house is planned for Oct. 6, with the time to be announced.
[slideshow_deploy id=’899′]
Commuter parking would be affected
In all of his concepts for the township firehouse, Conley eyed adjacent land that the township uses as commuter parking, saying it could be tapped for an addition to the building.
He also said property the township owns across the street from Seasons Catering could be brought into the mix, perhaps as a new site for commuter parking closer to the bus stop.
The meeting room, above the engine bays, is the only adequately sized space, and Conley said he worked to salvage it.
“Given the age and condition of the existing building, however, it doesn’t seem prudent to spend money to renovate it,” he added.
Each of three proposed renovations schemes involves an addition to the existing building.
“Newly purchased fire trucks must be customized in order to fit in the existing building. All three of the proposed solutions, however, suggest that the existing building could be utilized,” Conley said.
A new building would be “at least partially a two-story structure, maybe with a mezzanine, have all the benefits of renovation and have none of the deficiencies,” Conley told Pascack Press.
His schemes all list “a considerable loss of parking spaces on the site, and no opportunity for drive-through bays” as deficiencies.
Estimates for the township’s firehouse range from $4.2 million to $4.7 million.
Concepts that bring the Volunteer Ambulance Corps to the site bump renovations to $5.2 million to $5.7 million.
A new firehouse would cost $4 million to $5 million; Conley said accommodating the Ambulance Corps with its rig bumps a new building to $5 million to $6 million.
There would be no interruption to emergency services.
All concepts, which Conley illustrated with floor plans, bring the firehouse up to the standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Fire Protection Association, and the New Jersey Division of Fire Safety, he said.
Mayor Peter Calamari noted of the presentation, “This is just a possibility for a design that would work so that we could put a dollar amount to it. It’s a conceptual design, not necessarily a design you would take,” he said.