Castagna Consulting Group was hired by the Town of Pelham to establish a cost effective program for their new fire station. Several designs have been presented the previous 3 years and all were defeated by town voters.
Castagna began with a comprehensive investigation to formulate efficient facility size with the help of the fire department personnel. Our work culminated with a positive voter majority in March of 2012
As an essential facility, fire station structures are part of a critical occupancy category. This category contains structures that are intended to remain operational in the event of extreme environmental loadings (Floods, Storms, Earthquakes, etc.). The occupancy category impacts the loads for which a structure must be designed with regard to snow, wind, and seismic forces. Beside these environmental loads, fire station design is unique due to the high floor to ceiling heights and long roof spans that are often required in the apparatus bay to allow for large vehicle maneuverability.
The next step was to establish a working pro-forma budget that was sellable to the public. The need for the station was unquestionable. It came down to the cost of the facility as well as the life cycle of the structure.
The answer was building the 19,000 square foot structure using Insulated Concrete Form System (ICF)
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Chief James Midgley “explained how a committee was formed over 10 years ago to discuss the future needs of the town would be, anticipating that there would be a need to build a fire station. It turns out that the future projections that were made for the department were very accurate. “Under the direction of the Chief at the time, Chief Fisher, the committee did a pretty good job with their projections for the community.”
“In 10 years since we started the process, our department has doubled in size in personnel to meet the growing demand for service in our town. We now have a 24 hour, 365 day a year fire service and advanced life support paramedic service,” he explained.“This building is a direct result of many years of work that was put forth by individuals including the Board of Selectmen, the Budget Committee, Town Administrator and many citizens. .
Midgyle said, “Town Administrator Tom Gaydos felt that we owed it to the Community to build a very economical building but build a very good building. Having talked to different fire chiefs who are going through the process now, the first words out of their mouths are ‘How in the World did you build that building, as beautiful as it is, for that cost?’ So I think we met our mark in what we set out to do.”
