The Chehalis Fire Station has not been occupied by the city fire department since August.
Members of the Chehalis City Council listen as Community Development Director Trent Lougheed provides an update on the Chehalis Fire Station.
Five-gallon buckets set out to catch water leaking through the walls. Plaster flaking off walls to reveal unenforced masonry without any insulation. Corrosion of wooden beams that looks like the work of beavers.
Those were just a few of the examples highlighted by city of Chehalis staff members Monday as they outlined for the city council why it was their collective recommendation that the Chehalis Fire Department should abandon any notion of renovating the historic downtown fire station prior to a new one being built.
City Manager Jill Anderson explained that an occurrence of airborne asbestos in August led her to reexamine ongoing efforts to rehabilitate the building at 455 NW Park St. Chehalis. Firefighters have been operating out of Lewis County Fire District 6 headquarters since then, an arrangement that seems likely to continue for at least the months to come.
“The question became that, if this happened on a fairly simple aspect of the project, what happens when we get into the more complicated aspects?” Anderson said. “…It’s my recommendation that they not go back to that fire station.”
Community Development Director Trent Lougheed walked councilors through a powerpoint presentation outlining the various obstacles preventing a relocation back to downtown Chehalis. Chief among them were the glaring structural issues with the building and the cost of retrofitting it to bring it up to not only building code, but an enhanced metric required of facilities deemed essential by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Roofing is a central concern, as there do not appear to be any mechanical connections between the roof, walls and flooring. The roof and floor supports rest inside beam pockets — notches — built into the masonry. Mayor Dennis Dawes drew a comparison to Lincoln Logs that Lougheed did not object to.
The masonry itself is heavily damaged from decades of exposure to the elements. The mortar holding the bricks in place has degraded to the point that Lougheed was able to find a damp spot last week and push a house key all the way into the wall.
The station is also not built to withstand a significant seismic or severe weather event. It has in the past — the presentation stated, and “It is ‘reasonable to assume’ the building is not in danger of collapsing due to its own weight.”
That said, an earthquake could jolt the roof out of its sockets, which could render bay doors inoperable and trap fire engines inside the building during a time of crisis.
“The cost to make this structure meet all the criteria … would be well more than what a new fire station would cost,” Lougheed said.
The council did not take any action related to the fire station Monday and is not expected to until Fire District 6 puts together a long-term lease proposal for Chehalis firefighters to continue operating out of its building just south of town.
Another option for bridging the gap between now and the completion of a new fire station includes constructing a temporary station between Walmart and Home Depot for anywhere between $530,000 and $740,000. Additionally, the city could choose to reconfigure much of City Hall to accommodate a makeshift fire station.
Both of those options come with significant drawbacks aside from cost, according to city staff. Sharing space with Fire District 6 is not ideal, but is seen as the lesser of necessary evils at this time.
The location and scope of a new Chehalis fire station will depend largely on whether or not it and Fire District 6 consolidate into one department. A feasibility study is slated to take place in the spring to help determine whether or not that can happen.
“We need to make that decision quick,” Dawes said. “We need to be moving, and we need to be moving fast.”
