Fountain Valley to purchase property for $8.1 million to build new fire station

Fountain Valley moved ahead with plans for a new fire station Tuesday, as the City Council approved an $8.125-million purchase to acquire a parcel for the new facility.

City officials spoke of the future fire station as a sizable upgrade. The current Fire Station No. 1 — located at 17737 Bushard St. — was built on a 0.6-acre lot in 1958, the year after the city was incorporated.

With the council’s action, the city will enter into an agreement to acquire a 2.86-acre property at 17101 Bushard St.. A vacant office building on the lot would be demolished.

Omar Dadabhoy, community development director and deputy city manager, said two hotel developers had shown interest in the site, but neither was able to secure a deal. In acquiring the land for a new fire station, Dadabhoy added that there would be cost savings.

“The current site for the Fire Station No. 1 is a little too small for us,” Dadabhoy said. “If we were to try to build a new station there, we would need to find a temporary station for our fire personnel. That would cost $2-to-3 million. … Once we build this site and move our fire personnel into it, then we would have surplus land on the existing site, and we believe that value is currently about $1.6-2 million as a residential use, depending on the density of that.”

The vote carried 4-1 after Mayor Pro Tem Glenn Grandis made a motion to have $6 million for the purchase come from the general fund reserves assigned to Measure HH and the remainder from the capital projects portion of the general fund. Earlier in the evening, council members had approved the creation of a separate line item on the city’s balance sheet to track Measure HH spending.

The Fountain Valley City Council agreed to purchase the property at 17101 Bushard Street to replace Fire Station No. 1. It is a 2.86-acre parcel of land.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)

“I’d like to leave at least $10 million in the [general fund capital projects] fund,” Grandis said. “Of the $6 million that we would take out of [Measure] HH, the first 2 [million] when we sell that property would replenish, so really that’s only 4 [million] out of HH, and then the revenue opportunities, I think, will far exceed $4 million.

“We would first replenish HH with that $4 million, and then from there, we could then go to the general fund. By separating all this and continuing to separate, we make sure that we start paying down the pension liability as we go forward.”

Councilman Patrick Harper said he favored purchasing the property, but he cast the dissenting vote because he felt the decision regarding how much Measure HH funding to allocate could have been done down the road. He said that Measure HH funds have been allocated at the end of each fiscal year with input from the Measure HH oversight committee.

The current fire station did not meet the modern needs of the fire department, Fire Chief Bill McQuaid said. He noted that Fire Station No. 1 did not meet ADA codes, fell short in supporting gender diversity, lacked sufficient employee parking and could not house ambulances on site.

McQuaid indicated the new site would come with its advantages, including immediate access to the 405 Freeway in both directions and the ability to perform on-site training.

“With the available space in there, that gives us the ability to do on-site training here locally, which then keeps us in our response areas and not having to send us outside of the city as often to go train at off-site facilities,” McQuaid said. “We can do ventilation training, ladder training, apparatus maintenance, technical rescue training. There’s a lot of different things that we can integrate into some of that space on the site.”

McQuaid also responded to a concern that both of the city’s fire stations would now be located on the northern side of the 405 Freeway. Fire Station No. 2 is located at 16767 Newhope St., a stone’s throw away from Los Amigos High.

“In the past, the stations were on the opposite sides, and when we do our damage assessment surveys after earthquakes and stuff like that, they were set up for that,” McQuaid said. “But I think that’s been significantly diminished with the new freeway project and the new construction. The old bridges were probably of more concern. Now, everything’s built to earthquake standards, so I don’t have the same concern that I would have prior to the redevelopment of the 405.”