By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

Voters in the North West Fire District approved the construction of a new fire station and additions to Station 1 over a year ago, but construction has yet to begin because the project’s architects say the design is more than $2 million over the $4.5 million budget voters approved.

The NWFD Board of Commissioners voted June 11 to hire Syracuse-based firm VIP Structures for $16,800 to look over the existing plans from CSArch, an Albany-based architecture firm, to see if the project can be brought back within the original budget.

“We just wanted to make sure we’re doing our due diligence. We’re not going back and asking for more money. We’re going to figure out how to do it within this budget,” NWFD Commissioner Beckie Wasielewski told the Messenger.

In May 2018, voters approved a proposition to borrow $4,334,150 to construct the new Station 3 on the site of a shopping center on Oswego Street and Smokey Hollow Road and make improvements to Station 1, located on Crego Road. The district plans to use $200,000 from its fund balance toward the project, which district officials estimated would cost a total of $4,534,150.

Wasielewski said the district has already paid CSArch approximately $250,000 for the plans for the new Station 3 and addition to Station 1.

“They charge us every time they touch the drawing,” she said at the June 11 meeting.

According to CSArch, the final design the NWFD agreed upon would take $6.5 million to build. Estimators for the firm told the district that Station 3 would cost about $500 per square foot to build.

“We didn’t change the square footage, we just moved rooms around. How did we gain an additional $2.5 million?” Wasielewski said of district officials’ reaction to the increased estimate.

“Our station is not an extravagant Taj Mahal. There’s nothing in there that we can cut,” NWFD Commissioner Tony McIntyre said at the June 11 meeting.

Rich Shaler, senior estimator at VIP Structures, said the $500 per square foot figure was “absurd” and estimated the job would more likely range between $250 and $365 per square foot.

Shaler agreed that the plans for Station 3 are not extravagant, but said VIP Structures would work with the NWFD and CSArch to revise the design. He said one costly aspect of the plans was a storage mezzanine, which could account for $100,000 to $200,000 alone. Shaler said architects and the district could find a cheaper solution for storage space within the revised design.

Wasielewski said the original plan was to demolish about two-thirds of the original building at the 118 Oswego St. site. Shaler said VIP Structures could develop a rough estimate of what it would cost to demolish the entire structure and build new.

Originally, the NWFD had hoped to begin construction of the new Station 3 by the end of 2019.

“If we can get this portion of it settled and go out to bid in the fall, [it should take] 14 months,” Wasielewski said. “We might be able to get in by the end of 2020.”

District officials are hoping to fit improvements to Station 1 in the revised plan as well. The NWFD has planned since 2015 to build a 4,470-square-foot addition to Station 1, which would add training and meeting space.

“We really wanted to finish off that and make it community-friendly, but if we have to, we will cut that off and focus on Station 3 because we have got to get out of that building,” Wasielewski said. “I’m hoping it will come back that we can get both pieces still done.”