“The renovation of fire stations 15 and 16 represents the initial stage of a multi-year fire station renovation project,” said Brad French, assistant chief of the Dayton Fire Department. “All 12 fire stations across the city of Dayton will receive some level of updating and modernization in the coming years.”
The fire department is seeking a firm to complete facility assessments and professional design work and oversee construction administration services for fire stations 15 and 16.
Fire station 15 was built in 1979 and is located at 2801 Wayne Ave., near Belmont High School and the Dayton Metro Library Southeast Branch.
Station 16, constructed in 1954, sits at 4111 Kings Highway, near the Save A Lot in the Gettysburg Plaza strip mall in the Wesleyan Hill neighborhood.
These buildings have age-related maintenance challenges and they were built before modern expectations were developed for individual privacy in firefighter living spaces, said assistant chief French.
“This assessment, design and renovation project will modernize the living spaces, improve personnel safety, and position the buildings for years of additional use,” he said.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
The city wants to improve the functionality of the fire stations and their living conditions. But the city also hopes that the renovations will help reduce future operating costs.
Dayton Deputy City Manager Joe Parlette said the city has done a fairly good job in investing in the infrastructure of its fire stations in the last eight or so years.
He said the city has repaired or replaced roofs, boilers and HVAC systems. But he said the city hopes to improve the quality of life in the stations.
“These investments are more about what a modern fire station would look like,” he said. “I know that they sought feedback from the personnel from station to station to see what their priorities would be.”
Work on stations 15 and 16 is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. The fire department says it plans to spend about $5.5 million updating its 12 stations, which were built between 1939 and 1985.
Previously, the city proposed spending about $11 million of its federal COVID relief aid to create a new joint police and fire station, likely in northwest Dayton.
But the city nixed that plan.
The Dayton Police Department now plans to build a new police station on the Wright brothers airplane factory site along West Third Street.
The fire station renovations and the new proposed police station are part of the Dayton Recovery Plan, which is the city’s spending roadmap for its $138 million in federal COVID relief funding.
French said the Dayton Recovery Plan is meant to have long-term sustainable and transformational impacts on the city.
“A multimillion-dollar investment into modernizing the facilities utilized by our city’s dedicated police officers and firefighters will help to accomplish that goal,” French said.
The Dayton Fire Department had its busiest year ever in 2023, with crews responding to an unprecedented number of fire and EMS calls.
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