It’s a big “if,” but if the dooryard isn’t ankle deep in mud, and work continues on schedule, Whitefield’s central fire and rescue station might be open by March town meeting so people can take a look.
“That would be wonderful,” said building committee chairman Erik Ekholm Tuesday.
The 5000 square foot space was as busy as a beehive this week with subcontractors dry walling, painting, sawing trim boards, installing door hardware and hooking up door openers in the apparatus bay. At times it’s been a six-day-a-week job.
Contractor Tom Catalano, walking through the nearly finished station with Ekholm, architectural designer Lynn Talacko, and Selectman Frank Ober, said, “It’s a sharp building.” It has many large windows and is oriented so that sunlight will flood the rooms during the day.
Relentless rain last fall impeded the project. “We lost two to three weeks getting the foundation in, and then we had the snowiest winter on record. It’s been a trying project but we’ve maintained the schedule,” Catalano said, estimating the bulk of the work will be done in three weeks.
After that will come grading and outside concrete work.
Ready to be painted are the large (28×24-ft.), airy meeting room and attached kitchenette space; an adjoining small multipurpose room where some donated exercise equipment, such as a treadmill, could be placed; several closets, a decontamination area, two bathrooms with showers, offices for the rescue chief and fire chief, an operations center for radios and telephones, and a small “town room” just inside the entrance for storage of town materials and a desk.
There is also a recessed area in the entryway for displaying fire department history, such as memorabilia and plaques, Ekholm said.
In the 16-foot-high apparatus bay, where two large vehicles and two small ones can be kept, carpenters were working on window casings. Talacko pointed out the multi-paned windows. “The idea was to have the windows roughly the same size as those in the town office,” which is located next door, “so that the buildings relate,” he said.
Further, the trim and the corner trim on the roofs of the two structures harmonize, and the setback from the road is identical “to keep the street line the same,” he added.
Ekholm, whose background is in historic restoration, applauds the building profiles. “When you drive north you can see how well (the station) lines up with the townhouse roofline.” Also, when building committee members were discussing siding, they wanted to “make it look appropriate and traditional and also maintenance free,” he said.
They compromised, selecting vertical steel siding on the exterior bay walls.
While they aren’t boards, such as those on a barn, nonetheless, Talacko said, “They will fit in with the feel of a farming community.” Also, the individually painted fiber-cement siding on the meeting room section, while not authentic clapboards, mimics that style.
In achieving “one heck of a good-looking building,” in Ekholm’s words, the committee has worked to keep costs low. They chose interior gypsum board walls and vinyl tile floors – “about as inexpensive a floor as you can do,” he said. Also, by following Efficiency Maine program guidelines on electrical and heating cost savings for businesses and residences, the project is eligible for $1500-$2000 in rebates, Talacko said. The building will be lit with modern fluorescent, energy-efficient bulbs.
There is a small, efficient propane boiler that will heat not only water but also the entire building. A grid of radiant heating elements lies under the cement floor throughout the station. “It’s a mass of rock that’s heated,” said Ober, and keeps the building warmer longer even when the bay doors are open.
Besides aesthetic appeal and affordability, Ekholm said the committee wanted the building to be multipurpose. The 50-person meeting room “is the perfect space for an informational meeting, or a contentious planning board meeting, or if a lot of people are attending a selectmen’s meeting,” he said.
Further, there are public restroom facilities, including a handicapped accessible bathroom with shower in the event the building is used as an emergency warming center.
The kitchenette will contain a refrigerator, counters, oven and microwave but not stovetop, Ekholm said, because the hood system required is too costly. Down the road, he added, there will be different, more affordable options.
For the anticipated use of the public areas (the meeting room and kitchen), Ekholm said the town will need to develop policies.
Talacko, who is also the town’s EMS director, said the station is his first commercial project in Whitefield. He is employed by the architectural firm Royal Barry Wills Associates, in Damariscotta.
“It’s amazing the progress that has been made” since groundbreaking in late October, he said.
After paying the contractor, there will be about $90,000 left, part of which will go for landscaping and paving.
Selectman Ober did the lion’s share of arranging with the Maine Bond Bank to borrow $548,144 over 30 years. Voters at the 2010 town meeting approved a first payment of $31,510.
“It’s going to be fantastic,” Ober predicted at the end of the March 1 walk-through. He estimated the cost of heating the new building will not be greater than the present cost of heating the substandard North Whitefield station where he was formerly a firefighter.
The central station will absorb the North Whitefield association firefighters; the other two fire associations, in Coopers Mills and Kings Mills, own their buildings and will lease them to the town for a negotiated annual fee.
