Plans for new Sikeston fire station moving forward

SIKESTON, Mo. (KFVS) - The plans for a new fire station are moving forward.

At the March 6 city council meeting, they will be asked to authorize the city to release a request for qualifications for a construction management. They will also work with the architect to finalize the design of the building.

According to a release from the city of Sikeston, they’ll discuss construction costs and materials to be used. After a construction management firm is chosen, which could take a couple of months, they say it will take about six months or so for the design of the building.

Then the construction management firm will get bids for the subcontractors.

Douglas said the rest of the process could take around two years.

“Some of that is hoping for the best in terms of availability of people to do the work,” he added.

The city said it already bought a piece of land on East Malone, between Merrick’s and Burger King, to build the fire station.

The city council also chose an architect.

In early February, city officials met with the architects and DPS officials gave them a sketch of what they imagined; such as how many people would be housed there, what kind of training facilities are needed, storage, what kind of public access the building needs, etc.

“The architect is working on refining that layout and adding the architectural details to it,” Sikeston City Manager Jonathan Douglass said in the release, adding officials want to make sure the fire station is in a prominent spot and looks nice in the area.

According to the city, the need for the new fire station has been growing, which helped city officials plan for its cost.

“What we’ve been doing for the last couple of years is essentially budgeting an annual payment and setting that aside,” Douglass said. “We created a special fund for that, so we’ve been setting aside a little bit of money.”

Douglass said they have transferred $500,000 into the fund and have built the city’s budget around being able to afford an annual payment.

“We will have to finance [the new fire station],” Douglass said. “We don’t know exactly how much that is going to be. Like any other kind of financing, depending how much it is we’ll decide the shortest term we can realistically pay it off in that’s responsible.”

During the Feb. 27 meeting, city council members approved allocating the funds from the proposed 3 percent sales tax on adult use marijuana sold in the city to help pay for the fire station.

According to the city, Sikeston voters will go to the polls April 4 to vote on the measure and if approved, all money from the tax would go toward the payment of the fire station for the life of the financing.

The new fire station will replace Fire Station 2 located on North Main Street.

The city said the current Fire Station 2 has two major issues.

The first is structural issues, with major concerns about the ability of the roof to withstand a significant earthquake without falling in as well as the front wall of the building.

Inside the building, the city said there are vertical cracks on the side walls near the front of the building and outside there are cracks where the bricks are separating. It also appears the front wall is tilting out towards the street.

The second major problem is flooding, something that has plagued the building for quite some time.

During heavy rains, they said DPS officers will open the bay doors and let water flow through from Main Street through the fire station and out the back and down the hill.

According to the city, groundwater is also an issue, and with any significant rainstorm as the water table rises the living quarters toward the back of the fire station takes on water.

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