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HAMPTON — When Hampton built fire station No. 3 back in 1945 in the Wythe neighborhood, it would house two merged fire districts — The Wythe Fire Company and the Riverview Volunteer Fire Department.
Combined some two decades earlier, they were still small, and the needs of the community were modest compared today’s standards.
“It was programmed for fewer personnel, smaller apparatus, and the needs considered basic at the time,” Hampton Fire Chief Jason Monk said in an email. “Over time, industry standards with respect to safety and operational effectiveness have changed.”
The firefighters with Hampton Fire and Rescue Division now assigned at the Kecoughtan Road location — seven in total with at least five working every day — have outgrown the digs. The location is not where Hampton would renovate the existing footprint, partly because a large part of the coverage radius is over the water, plus its aging infrastructure has been in need for an upgrade for at least a decade.
City officials announced Wednesday it will build a new facility on a 3.2-acre city-owned vacant lot fronting on West Pembroke Avenue, near War Memorial Stadium. The site gives access to a major city thoroughfare and moves the radius area more over land, which would improve response times for residents living in historic Olde Wythe and homes near Bluewater marina and the stadium vicinity and adjacent districts, when needed.
“Certainly it’s a project that’s long time overdue and by that I mean, going back to when I was fire chief, which was 10 years ago, we were searching for a site to meet our needs,” Vice Mayor Jimmy Gray said.
Among proposed amenities is to create a bay to house antique equipment used historically by many volunteer fire companies. Gray said many see the fire station as a community gathering place, and he sees the new location helpful in that regard.
“If you’re out on a day with the kids and plan to attend a baseball game, you can drive in and visit the fire station at the same time,” he said.
The Hampton City Council — meeting with three members participating remotely — approved Wednesday to advance $193,800 from Hampton’s fund balance to begin design work, city spokeswoman Robin McCormick said. Hampton is using its fund balance because there is a hold on issuing bonds for fiscal year 2021.
While the city is exempted from a reinstated governor’s order in December that limits indoor social gatherings to 10 people, the city wanted to set an example, Mayor Donnie Tuck said. A quorum of four members inside council chambers, Tuck, Gray, councilmen Steve Brown and Steve Bowman, voted to allow members to participate remotely.
The city’s 2016 capital improvement budget slated $500,000 toward the Wythe fire station project initially. The lion’s share to finance new construction — $7 million — was greenlighted last year in the city’s current capital improvement plan.
There are 270 full-time personnel working in Hampton Fire and Rescue, supplemented by a contingent of volunteers, according to the city’s website. Six of the city’s 11 stations have volunteer fire companies; four have volunteer rescue squads. All fire stations have an overlapping 3 mile radius and 7 square mile response area that allows the city to keep response times at 5 minutes and 20 seconds an incident more than 90% of the time, as required by National Fire Protection Association standards, Monk said.
The city hopes to break ground on the station in spring 2022, after design work and securing contractors is done, with a construction completion date of fall 2023.