DeKalb panel supports plan to build new $4M fire station on city’s southwest side

DeKALB – DeKalb city leaders are one step closer to bringing equity to fire and paramedic emergency response call times for service for residents on the city’s southwest side with a new fire station, estimated to come with a $4 million price tag.

At Monday’s DeKalb Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, the panel voted, 6-0, to support plans to build a new 8,000-square-foot fire station at 1130 S. Malta Road. The station would have three apparatus bays, according to site plans. Vice Chair Bill McMahon was absent.

Commissioner Jerry Wright questioned the urgency with which the panel needs to act.

“What makes this the right timing and not before this?” Wright asked.

City Manager Bill Nicklas said in reply that the city believes the time is now for a fourth station for the DeKalb Fire Department.

“It’s just not acceptable for a city that wants to be a first-rate city that we can’t get to places in town in less than 10 minutes or eight minutes on an average,” Nicklas said. “We could’ve done it maybe two years ago, but we didn’t have the resources. We’ve got some cushion now. Growth has had a positive affect in that respect. I don’t know how we can make the argument that we should wait.”

Fire Chief Mike Thomas said the need for a fourth fire station is evident and would allow for first responders to get to emergencies more quickly than they can right now.

“We identified a glaring hole in our response capability on the southwest side of town, in particular – the subdivisions, the Knolls, Devonaire Farms and then to the south of there,” Thomas said. “Our response times were greater than the industry standard, which is four minutes from time we leave the fire house to the time we arrive at a residence.”

Thomas said the solution for that problem was to build another station.

The city started looking into multiple different locations that could suit a fourth fire station to meet the community’s needs, officials said.

“It dawned on me that the city of DeKalb owned this lot already,” Thomas said. “It turns out it is adequate in size for our needs. … It helps us further on the south end. It helps our other stations more in their district rather than out of district. We do have the four-minute response time.”

In 2022, the DeKalb Fire Department ran about 7,600 calls for service, officials said. When Thomas stated with the agency in 1995, calls for service were about 2,700, he said.

Thomas said the agency’s simultaneous calls for service – when crews are called at the same time for multiple different emergencies – also continue to soar.

In 2022, the fire department handled about 2,744 simultaneous calls for service.

Thomas said the agency has surpassed that figure and is still counting.

City leaders stress that a fourth fire station would not prompt concerns for added traffic congestion. City staff pointed to city ordinances that would restrict the number of access points to South Malta Road and and South Annie Glidden Road. An amendment to the ordinance is meant enable one added full access point onto South Malta Road.

Nicklas lauded the panel for supporting the city’s proposal to build a fourth fire station.

“This station is going to be an advanced design that minimizes draw that we might use except when we’re exercising the generator,” Nicklas said. “We might use less power than some of the houses in the subdivision next door. [It’s] all state-of-the-art stuff just so that our maintenance overtime is down, but also so we have less impact on the neighbors.”

With the panel’s initial approval, plans to build the new fire station now head to the City Council for consideration at its Feb. 12 meeting.