Fayetteville’s new fire house hits a snag but when built will help with a deadly problem

A new Fire Station 4 is under construction on Bragg Boulevard.

For me, it’s an event, like when a new school is on the way.

Even in its unfinished phase, the large brick structure is poised to breathe more life into a scruffy corridor along which the last known major development is The Villagio luxury apartments. That complex opened in 2011 and is located next door to the station on the boulevard.

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That is to say nothing of the medical and fire services coming to an economically depressed part of the city located a stone’s throw from Bonnie Doone.

A snag

But there is a snag.

The station is a new build but not new — Station 4 is being relocated from its Stamper Road location, just under two miles away, off Fort Bragg Road near Fayetteville Technical Community College. The relocation and new build is not cheap — is anything these days?

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The station will be just under 18,500 square feet and was initially projected to cost $8 million, but that figure in 2022 jumped to more than $11 million, thanks to supply chain issues in the construction industry.

Last fall, a contractor missed a key construction deadline. City staff brought to the Fayetteville City Council an amendment at the April 8 meeting that would add $1.5 million to the price tag, which would include the cost of potential litigation against the contractor.

But the council said “no” in a 5-4 vote.

“Wow,” Mayor Mitch Colvin said afterward. Colvin and Councilmen Derrick Thompson, Malik Davis and D.J. Haire voted in favor of the additional money.

Council members Courtney Banks-McLaughlin, Mario Benavente, Lynne B. Greene, Deno Hondros and Brenda McNair voted against it.

‘Not comfortable’

Earlier in the meeting, Greene had the amendment pulled from the consent agenda to be considered separately. She said the fire station project had a number of issues, including workmanship and quality issues.

“Staff has met with the bonding company, and we’re awaiting information as to whether the bonding company’s going to step in,” she said. “However, I’m not comfortable in allocating this amount of money to this project without hearing from the bonding company and knowing what they’re going to do.”

She said there were reasons to vote for or against the amendment, but she was not comfortable doing so “with my background.”

Greene has a background in real estate investment and has served on several boards for nonprofits.

She told me on Sunday that she supported completing the station: “It needs to be finished. I am concerned about moving money out of our general fund to fund something that should be paid for by the bonding company.”

At the April 8 meeting, the mayor said: “I do plan to vote for it because I know we need to complete this.”

But he encouraged City Manager Doug Hewett to do “check-ins” with the council on any cost overruns.

He said if there was any overfunding, the money should come back to the general fund balance.

Keeping us safe

I consider it extremely unlikely that the council or city will stop building a fire station so far along in construction. All this will get ironed out and Station 4 will move down the road to its new home.

Loren Bymer, city spokesman, said over email: “Since the motion did not pass, staff has taken the item back for more analysis, and it will be presented at a future meeting.”

City officials broke ground for Fire Station 4 in August 2022, billing it as state-of-the-art and predicting it would be “the busiest station in the City as it will be immediately accessible to several major travel routes with three bays for fire trucks.”

That’s cool because we witness almost daily the importance of firefighters. These days when we see fire trucks, lights on, headed to an emergency, it is significantly more likely the emergency is medical rather than a fire.

When my kids were very young, we took them to firehouses to make sure their car seats were properly installed. Station 12 on Hope Mills Road because that was convenient for us, or more often, Station 9 on Santa Fe Drive, because that was near their grandparents, i.e., babysitting.

Firefighters have checked our family’s smoke detectors, and by the way, check yours.

A deadly toll

One of the state-of-the-art features in Station 4 will be decontamination equipment, which according to a city news release, would "remove exhaust from the air, which is a safety measure for firefighters as cancer is a concern for firefighters across the nation."

Sadly, we now are increasingly aware of the toll the fire service can cause — a release from the Fayetteville Fire Department just last week noted that the state’s industrial commission ruled Battalion Chief John Bowen's death from cancer in 2000 was a “line-of-duty death.”

“Bowen experienced significant occupational exposures during his service to the City of Fayetteville’s Fire Department that directly attributed to his cancer,” said Fire Chief Ben Dove. The release listed five other members of just the Fayetteville department who had succumbed to cancer.

So some of our focus needs to be on keeping firefighters safe, like they keep us safe.

Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559. 

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Why is fire station on Bragg Boulevard in Fayetteville not finished?