Architect hired for new Sycamore fire station

SYCAMORE – A new fire station could be headed to Sycamore after the City Council voted this week to appoint an architecture firm to lead the project.

The new station would replace the city’s increasingly dilapidated Fire Station 1, which has sat at 535 DeKalb Ave. for almost 70 years. The council voted 8-0 to approve the contract.

The plan could remedy a scenario that Sycamore Fire Chief Bart Gilmore said threatens to bring down the building’s electrical system. In that event, the department knocked out air conditioning units that firefighters used to cool their second-floor living quarters.

“We’ve developed a plan that, if electrical fails, these guys are going to go sleep in the basement on air mattresses,” Gilmore said. “So I’m all about doing things the most efficient way, but we need our building to a standard.”

It’s not a want. We don’t want a new fire station, but I think it’s because of all these factors that we need it.”

—  City Manager Michael Hall

The 66-year-old building is not compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, contains asbestos and is heated by a boiler as old as the building, city officials have said.

Gilmore has said firefighters manning the station slept in the cold three times during the winter when the boiler went down, and he is worried electricity problems during the heat wave this week could force firefighters to sleep in the station’s basement.

City Manager Michael Hall said considering a new fire station is a question of “what do we need and not what we want.”

“It’s not a want. We don’t want a new fire station, but I think it’s because of all these factors that we need it,” Hall said. “So engaging the public is more just informing them, having them be a part of the process, and luckily this is going to be a big, huge project because Ideal [Industries] has gotten in this as well. They are donating the land to us.”

The location of the property that Hall said Ideal Industries Inc. will give to the city has not yet been finalized. There’s hope that the collaboration could lessen the cost of the project by eliminating the need for the city to buy land for the station, city officials said.

During a May 15 council meeting, Kluber Architects told city officials that they estimate it would cost between $11.4 million and $13.6 million to build a new station at a different location than the city’s current Fire Station 1.

This week, Hall said Kluber’s numbers were preliminary, and the resolution that was passed authorizes him to enter the city into an agreement with Oak Brook-based FGM Architects for the preliminary design and concept plan of a new Fire Station 1.

“These are big block ideas. We’re not really refined in our study of this, so these costs are very loose approximations,” Hall said of the estimated costs Kluber provided earlier in the year. “They are very, – for a lack of a better word – kind of a gooshy number because we don’t really know what it’s supposed to look like.”

Ted Strack, a Sycamore Park District Board representative on the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, spoke largely against the city spending funds on a new fire station during the Aug. 7 City Council meeting and suggested the council seek more input from the public before moving forward.

On Monday, 4th Ward Alderperson Ben Bumpus asked whether the council should heed Strack’s advice.

Sycamore Mayor Steve Braser said he’s had conversations with U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, and state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Cherry Valley, about getting grant funding for the project but was told more concrete plans need to be drawn up before money can be procured.

“Before we can get any money, we have to have a plan, so they’re both very willing to work with us,” Braser said. “They said Sycamore has asked for nothing for a long time on anything. A lot of other communities have gotten stuff, and they’re very much in tune with working with us and very open to conversation, but we’ve got to have the plan before they can join the conversation.”

Hall said he thinks having the city’s emergency operations center – a headquarters for police and fire department staff – “confined to one location is not the best practice.”

“Meaning that most of the police and fire department are both in one location,” Hall said. “If a tornado were to come through, we would take out our entire emergency operations all in one fell swoop. And having those separate, best practices would be to have two EOC centers in different locations – police department here, fire department in another location – in case something tragic were to happen.”