New fire station to open soon
By Melissa Muntz Community Reporter

Shrewsbury - The new Shrewsbury Fire Headquarters may be operational as early as Saturday Dec. 1, according to Fire Chief Gerald LaFlamme.

Construction is several months ahead of schedule and is expected to come in close to 10 percent under budget. All the Fire Department is waiting for now is the telephone and radio system hookup, which takes just two to three days.

"We have to preempt delivery times to get it all together," LaFlamme said after the Nov. 8 Fire Station Building Committee meeting. "SELCO is doing the fiber optics transfer from the old building to the new building right now, which is huge."

Communications for the department is a key piece to the building's design. With a double console in the communications room, the building allows for the Fire Department to share the building with any other town department without limiting either one's capabilities.

Also, the station's classroom is wired so that any town department can be reached there, simply by removing the phone from its own offices and plugging it into phone jacks in the classroom. Within one minute, a phone from Town Hall plugged in at the station will begin receiving phone calls at its regular listed number.

The building also has a conference room and library that LaFlamme said could be easily transformed into offices should another department need to temporarily house itself in the headquarters building.

"This is the first building in town that's really designed to be interdepartmental," he said.

The new building stands directly behind its predecessor and is designed to meet the needs of a 60-person fire department. Shrewsbury has 36 firefighters, but LaFlamme said the additional space ensures that the department will not outgrow the building for the next several decades.

It will take four to six weeks to fully demolish the front building, during which time a single fire truck will operate out of the side garage.

All other vehicles will be transferred to the other two stations until the demolition is complete. LaFlamme said having just a single vehicle in the town center should not impact operations.

"Very often we only have a single truck out anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem," he said.

LaFlamme isn't expecting the move from the front building to the new facility to take very long. Firefighters will take two or three days transporting equipment, books and personal items to their new home.

In 2006, Town Meeting appropriated $7.5 million for construction of the new headquarters, the new station on CenTech Boulevard and renovations to the Harrington Avenue station. LaFlamme said all three are expected to be complete for less than $7 million.

"It's a utilitarian set of buildings, but we lack nothing in these buildings," he said.

The Harrington Avenue station's renovation is already complete.

"It has new electric, new plumbing, a new roof, new windows, new heating and air conditioning," LaFlamme said. "So really it's like there are three brand-new stations for under $7 million."

LaFlamme said the committee will schedule an open house at each of the three facilities to allow the public to tour the sites and learn about the buildings capabilities. Dates for the open house have not yet been determined. The next Fire Station Building Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday Dec. 13.