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Council mulls new station
YOUNGSTOWN
After years of deterioration to Youngstown Fire Station No. 9 on the South Side, city council will consider legislation Wednesday to hire a company to design plans to construct a new building.
The design work, estimated to cost $49,000, also needs approval by the city board of control.
A new fire station, to replace the nearly 90-year-old building on the corner of Midlothian Boulevard and Sheridan Road, would cost about $600,000 to $700,000, said Fire Chief John J. O’Neill Jr.
If all goes according to schedule, the design work and proposals seeking contractors to construct a new station should be done by the end of the year, he said. The city would do the actual construction in 2013, O’Neill said.
The No. 9 station has had structural and other problems for about 15 years, said O’Neill and Mayor Charles Sammarone.
“That thing is ready to cave in at any time,” Sammarone said. “It’s really bad.”
There are problems with rats, mold and water leaks, and large pieces of timber were put in the basement a few years ago underneath the station’s bay, where a firetruck is parked, to keep the area from collapsing, O’Neill said.
“The floor is moving,” he said. “You see new pieces of stone in the basement because the vibration from the truck is shaking the concrete. It’s not exactly the most ideal way to run a fire station.”
The plan would be to build a new station in Ipes Field on Midlothian Boulevard, near Interstate 680, next to the playground, O’Neill said.
The city would attempt to sell the property with the rundown station, he said.
As for a new station, O’Neill said, “It doesn’t have to be the Taj Mahal. It needs to be a modest station for three firefighters. We may have a second bay to hold one of our reserve trucks. But only if we can afford it. It would be great, but it’s not mandatory.”
The current station is about 2,200 square feet. A new station would be about 4,000 square feet — about 5,000 square feet if the second bay is built, O’Neill said.
Also Wednesday, council will vote on an ordinance to sign a one-year deal to have Mahoning County inspect buildings in the city in what is the first of potentially a number of consolidation of services between the city and county, Sammarone said. The inspections are done for new construction and building improvement projects.
The two government entities agreed in March to try out the inspection plan for three months.
“It’s worked out real good,” Sammarone said. “I didn’t get one complaint. Before, [when the city did building inspections], I used to get complaints all the time.”
There are about 1,200 inspections annually in the city. The county charges $60 an inspection and is able to provide same-day service, something the city couldn’t do, Sammarone said.
The city was paying $60,645 in salary last year, and about $25,000 in health and pension benefits to have one person do the inspections, and the work was rarely same-day service. The person in that job, Anthony DeNicholas, retired earlier this year.
The mayor also wants to look at a consolidation with the county of the city’s building and health departments and emergency 911 services.
“I’m taking this one step at a time,” Sammarone said.