A Carson City Fire Department engine in 2023.
Photo by Scott Neuffer.
Construction is expected to begin this spring on a new fire station off Butti Way — the first addition to Carson City’s fire stations since the mid-1970s, according to Carson City Fire Chief Sean Slamon.
“We’re very excited about this,” Slamon told the Appeal on Thursday. “This has been a huge team effort within the city, within the public works department, even the sheriff’s office, the emergency management, and then the support of the Board of Supervisors has been just … it’s greatly appreciated, and this a great step in addressing and improving safety to our community.”
Slamon’s comments came after supervisors unanimously approved a contract with CORE West Inc., for approximately $15.6 million. The contract is to construct the approximately 17,700-square-foot fire station that will include an emergency operations center, IT offices and backup dispatch station. The total budget for the project is estimated to be $18.4 million, and supervisors also approved allocating $500,000 from the city’s ambulance fund to support the project.
“In 2000, the city commissioned a study that said we need a fire station,” said Supervisor Stacey Giomi, former fire chief. “That was 23 years ago, and so I’m excited, very excited, to have this agenda item and finally get going down the path of having that fourth fire station. It will drastically improve response and the safety in the community.”
Supervisor Maurice White had concerns that too many items had been removed from the station’s original plans in the face of rising construction costs.
“There are 19 items that have been cut out of this facility. I would encourage everybody to sharpen those pencils and let’s get most of this stuff put back in,” he said, emphasizing, for instance, the need for a generator at the site.
When asked about a backup generator for the facility, Slamon said there would be one at buildout, but it’s “definitely a concern.”
“We’re looking at some alternative methods of funding, emergency management grant funding,” he said.
Supervisors, however, agreed the new station is a priority. Following the hearing on the construction contract, they approved augmenting the city’s current fiscal year budget by about $181.1 million.
“I know this is a big dollar amount, but just for the public, we do this every year,” said Chief Financial Officer Sheri Russell-Benabou. “It’s unspent dollars from the prior year. There are projects that are currently going on or actually might have been finished in the first half of (fiscal year) ‘24, so we have to add these budget dollars back into ’24.”
“What’s she’s getting at is construction projects often take more than a year to accomplish,” said Mayor Lori Bagwell. “They straddle two fiscal years, so please don’t think this is miraculous new money.”
However, Bagwell identified in the augmentation process $300,000 the city could use for the fire station.
“We had reserved that from the sale of Brown Street and said we were going to put it back into housing, but I personally think we’ve done a great job with the flats on Butti Way and things (Sierra Flats). Those facilities are opened up and being leased, so potentially we can talk about that $300,000 for her (Russell-Benabou’s) next augmentation, where we would like that to go.”
Supervisors concluded the money should go to the fire station and/or maintenance of local roads. Russell-Benabou told the Appeal the city also has about $416,000 in undesignated ARPA funds, meaning supervisors could have more than $700,000 to consider for a future augmentation.
Slamon said he hopes the new station will be completed by August 2025. His goal is to cut the Carson City Fire Department’s average response time from around six minutes to four minutes.
“One, it will help us improve services to the east side of town. With all of the development, the Lompa Ranch area and all of that going up, it’s going to allow us to provide service there,” he said. “It’s also going to provide some redundancy coverage.”
That coverage means closer resources and shorter travel times when units are responding to multiple calls, he said.