City examines updating existing fire station
Margate has dropped its plan to replace Fire Station 58 with a new facility and will instead study the feasibility of rebuilding the existing building as per current code.
But before it goes ahead with its plan for the fire station, the city will have to ensure that the facility can be legally built on the site. At a recent city commission meeting, officials were informed that a fire station is not a permitted use in the S1 zoning district where the facility is located.
City staff said that the city could work around the problem by changing its zoning, but Mayor Tommy Ruzzano wasn’t impressed that the city had spent money on the design of the new facility before finding out that it wasn’t permitted on the site. The city should have introduced an ordinance to change the zoning before proceeding with the design of the facility, he said.
“Is this something that we should just do because we are so far into it,” asked Ruzzano. “We shouldn’t be this far. I am sure we have invested thousands of dollars on drawings. Somebody needs to be accountable here. The ‘A’ from accountability is gone. That is what the city is lacking.”
The fire station is situated next to an FPL easement. The initial design submitted by Saltz Michelson, architects for the project, was for a one story building, but that did not gain FPL approval. The revised design, for a two story building, has been approved by FPL and is currently under city review, said Charles Michelson, of Saltz Michelson.
The city has budgeted $4.2 million for the new fire station. A two story building, with a total area of 11,500 square feet, will cost about $6 million, said Ruzzano. “When you build up, it is a lot of money. A two story building is going to cost a lot more than a one story building.”
“Because this is going to cost so much more money than were anticipating, how would it be to just redesign the fire station,” asked Commissioner Joanne Simone. “Go for the rezoning and then redesign the building. Keep it as one story.”
Redesigning and rebuilding the existing building may not cost as much as building a new facility, but there would be a significant budget associated with it, said Michelson.
“We would have to do a structural review,” he said. “We would have to reconfirm the flood elevation of the building and make sure it is up to current standards. The building will have to be reinforced. There would be a fair amount of work that would go into modernizing and updating the building.”