Durango Fire Protection District hosted a tightly moderated public hearing Thursday to address questions and concerns about its purchase of the Durango School District 9-R Administration Building with the intent of turning it into a downtown fire station.
Residents were invited to submit their questions, comments and concerns online before the meeting, which took place in the building at 201 E. 12 St., and was streamed live online. The window for submitting questions closed on Tuesday.
Questions ranged from the future of parking on 12th Street to the preservation of the building’s historic nature, the impact of having emergency services present in the area and transparency concerns related to the sale of the Administration Building.
In addressing questions about transparency, Doughty said the school district chose to conduct a sealed-bid process and, as part of that process, forbid the fire district from discussing the potential sale outwardly.
The fire chief said he takes responsibility if the nature of the sale process offended anyone, but the fire district needed to take a competitive approach to securing the sale because the bid was open to parties nationwide.
Doughty said he scheduled personal meetings with individual city councilors and Durango police Chief Bob Brammer as a “courtesy advisement” of the fire district’s plans as the district moved forward with placing a bid for the Administration Building.
He said as the process moved along he received word that the sale was possible and that’s when the fire district started holding public meetings.
Doughty said the fire district needs to take advantage of the building to serve Durango residents. He noted that large land parcels are becoming harder to come by and those available are becoming more expensive.
About 180 paid employees, administrators and volunteers work for the fire district across its 328-square-mile operating area. Those people require parking just like everyone else.
One question addressed the availability of parking spaces on east 12th Street and the surrounding area. Doughty said that if the city approved the fire district’s use of the 9-R Administration Building in addition to the relocation of the Durango Police Department into the same building, the city would net 18 parking spaces.
The fire district could turn parking spaces adjacent to Buckley Park into reserved parking for the fire district or do the same to parking spaces on the other side of the street, the latter options resulting in fewer gained public parking options. The relocation of the police department to the Administration Building, which the fire district is hoping will also be approved, would free up parking spaces at 990 East Second Ave. where the police station is located, Doughty said.
He also said the fire district is working with the Colorado Department of Transportation to expand the use of remote traffic signal control, which the district already uses in its responses to emergencies to an extent.
Doughty said the fire district commissioned a traffic study, the results of which are expected by late March or early April.
Parking features will also be studied “to try to gain some perspective on what the public’s preferences and inputs would be,” he said.
Doughty said about 71% of the fire district’s responses are nonemergent, or do not involve critical scenarios. He said fewer than one-third of the downtown fire station’s responses require the use of emergency lights and sirens.
“The sirens deafen us as much as they deafen anybody else, and we don’t want to use those (if we don’t have to),” he said.
He said the lights and sirens are most often used to signal their vehicles’ presence when they are approaching stoplights and intersections.
“Typically, we are blocks away from the fire station before they turn those on,” Doughty said.
He said neighbors at other active stations are not struggling with the presence of lights and sirens.
The 9-R Administration Building was purchased for $6.9 million, with $5 million in cash and another $1.9 million in in-kind contributions such as an agreement to allow 9-R administration to continue using the building through the calendar year, Doughty said.
He said Big Picture High School has about 100 students and the fire district won’t gain access to that facility until July. Other in-kind contributions include dedicated parking spaces for school district employees who could continue to work close to the Administration Building, depending on how the school district decides to relocate administrative staff members.
Should the Administration Building also house the police department, the costs of shared spaces, such as gyms and common areas, would be shared by the police and the fire departments.
The total cost to renovate and develop the building for police and firefighters is estimated to be $25,750,000. Of that, the fire department would pay about $15.5 million and the police department would pay about $9.9 million.
The public hearing can be viewed in full on YouTube at https://bit.ly/3I1uN8O.
cburney@durangoherald.com
