Lakeland’s long-awaited Fire Station 8 has gotten one step closer to becoming reality after city officials approved a $7.4 million construction design on May 4.
Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a $7,442,873 contract with Lakeland-based Rodda Construction Inc. as a maximum price for constructing the fire rescue station. It will be be built Sleepy Hill Road and Mall Hill Drive in north Lakeland.
“I’m just very excited we are having this conversation today,” Lakeland Fire Chief Doug Riley said to commissioners. “It’s been a long time coming.”
Bringing Station 8 under budget
Fire Station 8 will be constructed to have three bays, an advanced life support fire engine, a quick-response advanced life support emergency medical vehicle and an incident supervisor.
Assistant Chief Matt Brown said the department originally hoped to have ground breaking in the early spring of this year, but that date came and went.
An initial estimate provided by Rodda Construction in December had a price of nearly $6.9 million. The cost was based on internal projections prior to the final construction documents being drafted, according to LFD spokeswoman Stephanie Lewis.
Once the final construction documents were drafted, adding in contractor and subcontractor work under the city’s formal bid process, the estimated price rose to over $7.7 million, Lewis said.
City staff had to work with Rodda to value-engineer the project to bring it within the budget for the project, City Attorney Palmer Davis said.
Davis said the largest changes to Rodda’s original proposed design was switching out bifold doors that would open sideways for traditional rollup-style garage doors. This change reduced costs by more than $176,000.
Brown had previously told The Ledger the bifold doors open typically in 7 to 10 seconds, where he estimated the rollup doors take about 14 to 20 seconds to open. The fire department had been looking to install the bifold doors to help shave seconds off its response times.
Commissioner Guy LaLonde questioned the change at the May 4 meeting prior to the vote, asking what impact it might have.
Brown said in speaking with the fire department’s current vendor for garage doors, they revised the estimate that the bifold doors were appxomiately five seconds faster. The bifold doors also came with sensors that automatically closed the doors after the engine left the station, a function that can now be incorporated into the traditional rollup doors.
A second major change was the fire department downgraded the initial concept design that featured a tall glass entryway with a sloped roof for a more traditional building with a flat roof. This change in structure is estimated to save about $50,000 in construction costs, according to the city documents.
When is construction starting?
The next step for Fire Station 8’s construction is to go through final permitting. Construction is expected to start approximately 30 days after the contract’s approval on May 4, Lewis said, but a start date has not been finalized.
Once ground is official broken on Fire Station 8, Rodda Construction will have 395 days, or roughly 13 months, to have the building substantially completed and ready for use.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: City approves final contract for Fire Station 8 in North Lakeland
Reporting by Sara-Megan Walsh, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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