Four years of hard work came to fruition at a public meeting at the Setauket Fire Deepartment's headquarters on Route 25A on July 8 as fire commissioners and their chief architect unveiled a $16 million bond proposal to update the 70-year-old building.
The meeting was the first of two open to the public - a second is scheduled for September 9 - to acquaint residents with the Fire Department's need for a new headquarters and to discuss the options available to the department.
Peter Caradonna, a self-described "sustainable architect," said that he was contracted by the commissioners to build a new department headquarters that not only reflects the needs of the fire district's 90,000 daytime residents, but also would withstand daily use over an extended period of time. He said that time is running out on the current structure, which was completed in the 1930s.
"I don't expect this building to last 20 years," Caradonna said, citing cracked aprons, leakage problems and the fact that much of the building is still framed with wood. "Once a fire starts in here, it will spread rather quickly," he said.
Caradonna also said that the building meets very little of what is mandated for today's buildings. "This building does not meet any building codes within any strech of the imagination," he said. "There is no hadicap accessibility whatsoever."
Another chronic problem for the department has been space. Commissioner Anthony Parlatore said that the department has to pay extra for specially sized trucks to fit into the department's small garages. He also said that the fire department's ladder truck has to be kept at the substation on Nicolls Road because it does not fit in the 25A facility.
"This building has outlived its needs," Parlatore said.
Although the proposed building will not occupy the same footprint, it will be similar aesthetically to the current building. The proposed building will be considerably larger and will occupy more space on the property; separate buildings are planned as well. The back piece of the property would be filled in and the old buildings on Old Town Road would be removed, as earlier reported.
In order to provide the Fire Department with a building that will suit their needs for decades to come, Caradonna said that he plans to build LEED certified, or certified by the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. If completed by 2007, the Setauket fire house would be the first of its kind on Long Island.
According to Caradonna, the current building would be taken down, and an energy-efficient one would be put up in the same place. Using innovative designs, the new building would utilize more natural lighting and natural ventilation and take less energy to construct. It would also cut the department's energy bill.
Despite previous reports, there is only one design for the new building. There are however three separate levels of LEED certification - gold, silver and certified - to choose from, along with the fourth option of building a new headquarters at the current market standard. There is another more costly level of LEED certification - platinum - but that so far has been kept off the table. Generally, the levels differ in price, in energy efficiency and nuances in the design.
Caradonna and the commissioners say that they can update the current structure for $8 million, but that the cost over 100 years for using the building, using a model based on a two percent rate of inflation, a five percent annual increase in energy cost and a five percent cost of capital, would total $539.9 million with an annual energy cost of $5.14 per square foot of the current 13,000-plus-square-foot building. In comparison, the LEED silver building - the one that they are unofficially leaning toward - would cost $16 million to construct, but would over time save the department a considerable amount of money. Using the same formula it would cost the department $301.6 million to run the building over the next 100 years, and it would reduce the annual energy cost to $1.91 per square foot. By reducing energy costs and usage. Caradonna noted that carbon dioxide emissions could be greatly lessened. If they were, for example, to choose a silver building over a market building, annual carbon dioxide emissions created by the building would be reduced from 866 tons to 451 tons.
Regardless of the expected return on such an investment, some residents were skeptical of the plans, especially when facing the possibility of paying $10 a month towards the project in the wake of skyrocketing prices for funding public education. The $10 per month for the update translates to an additional cost of approximately 40 cents a day for a house assessed at $5,000.
"Don't we pay a lot of money for maintenance?" asked one resident who questioned why the department had to provide services to the university and to assisted living centers which have increased in the area but which, the resident said, provided less than their share of tax dollars.
The fire department is mandated to serve everyone in the district, including the university and the assisted living centers. "We respond to all calls for help regardless of whether or not they pay taxes," said Fire Commissioner Ken Feldman. "Churches don't pay taxes either, and of course we respond to them."
A volunteer firefighter, Brian Yoos, questioned the need for what he described as a "$16 million office building" that wouldn't be to the benefit of firemen. Part of the plan calls for construction of meeting rooms accessible to community groups. Yoos also noted that it has been difficult to recruit new members of late.
Both Feldman and Parlatore said the proposed building isn't an office space and Caradonna noted that the fire commissioners had agreed to have their offices in the basement of the building.
Parlatore admitted that it was the least opportune time for such a proposal, but said that the current firehouse was nearing the end of its ability to serve a community that has multiplied considerably in the past 70 years.
Caradonna said that regardless of what's decided, the building would have to undergo a substantial overhaul. "It's a question of whether we're going to say 'let's do it today,' he said, "or whether we're going to pass it off to our kids."
