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Friday's Internet Edition, November 21, 2008.
$8 million price
approved for future fire station, fleet maintenance center
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The Cosumnes Community Services District has approved an $8 million expansion of its current maintenance center to build a future fire station and fleet maintenance center.
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By Cameron Macdonald
Staff Writer
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The Cosumnes Community Services District (CSD) Board approved an $8.3 million construction bid for a facility that houses a temporary fire station and a fire department vehicle maintenance center during their May 13 meeting.
The facility will be built next to the district’s current maintenance center at the CSD’s firefighter training center in south Elk Grove. The $8.3 million price will be on the auction block when the project goes to bid for construction companies. The CSD board will approve the final bid this year and the district’s timeline will schedule a project completion date by next May.
CSD Fire Chief Steve Foster mentioned that the future facility’s design was influenced by his staff’s trips to other facilities.
He compared the new 18,660-square-foot CSD maintenance center to cars.
“It is not a Cadillac, and it is not a Yugo for sure,” Foster told the CSD board. “It is definitely a Chevrolet.”
He mentioned that the idea for a new maintenance facility began eight years ago when it appeared that the currently one would not meet future needs. It was an old, sprinkler system contractor’s building that had a thin concrete floor that easily cracked, he said.
As for the new facility, Foster noted that then-CSD General Manager Rita Velasquez “challenged us to find the funding and make this happen.”
The project’s estimated cost rose from $7.7 million to $8.3 million due to items like a $30,000 crane, a city-required storm drainage system, an increase of $60,000 in concrete installation and $25,000 for new fencing, according to a CSD staff report.
The new facility includes a 7,072 square-foot fire station that will protect south Elk Grove and the area of the upcoming Elk Grove Promenade shopping mall until a permanent station is built by 2013.
The temporary station is desired since the mall is planned to open next spring.
Mall developer, General Growth Properties, Inc., earlier paid the CSD $250,000 for the construction of the fire station.
The CSD’s fire fee program and the district’s reserve funds will cover the rest of the project costs, according to a CSD staff report.
To reimburse the district’s fire fees and reserve funds, the CSD staff plans to get a loan that would debt-finance the project over 17 years at a cost of $11.4 million.
As the temporary station and new maintenance center will be built from the ground up, the fire department’s logistics center will also be moved from a building in the Franklin area to the future facility.
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