Engineering firm working on concept plan for Medina fire hall addition

Mayor: Project will fit in with historic district and ‘won’t break the back of the taxpayers’

File photo by Tom Rivers: The Medina Village Board is working to get a new one-bay addition on the fire hall, which doesn’t have enough room for a new ladder truck due to arrive in December 2025.

MEDINA – An engineering firm is working on a concept design for a one-bay addition to a the Medina fire hall.

That added room is needed to for a new ladder truck that is expected to arrive in just over a year.

Medina has hired the MRB Group for $15,000 to prepare the design. Those renderings can help the village pursue grants and financing for the project, Mayor Marguerite Sherman said.

The Village Board also approved an $800 contract with Paradigm Environmental Services to complete an asbestos survey at the fire hall. The company took samples and found no environmental issues standing in the way of the addition, Sherman said at Monday’s Village Board meeting.

The board was looking at a two-day addition to the fire hall plus renovations to the current building, but those construction estimates were about $6 million.

The board deemed that too expensive for the village. The cost of a one-day addition concerns board members but they said the project must go forward with the impending arrival of a ladder truck that won’t fit in the current fire hall.

The village is replacing a ladder truck from 1996. That truck has a ladder that is 75 feet long. That truck barely has clearance in the garage. The ladder truck has a clearance of 10.4 feet but the space in the garage is 10 feet, 6 inches, Jackson said.

The new ladder trucks have a clearance of 13 feet. The new hall addition is expected to have clearance up to 14 feet.

Trustee Jess Marciano said the concept plan has “basic schematics.”

“Essentially this project will come down to dollars per square foot,” she said.

Village Board members said the time frame is tight to have the addition done in time for the fire truck, but they said it should be ready.

Mayor Marguerite Sherman said the addition will blend in with the historic downtown.

“It will only park a fire truck and not detract from the look of the historic district,” she said. “It won’t break the back of the taxpayers.”