After years of delays, the City of San Diego broke ground on the Bayside Fire Station downtown, aimed at restoring services for some downtown residents.
The 25,000-square-foot, three-floor San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) station in Little Italy will cost $14.6 to build and will feature a kitchen, exercise room, sleeping dormitories, outdoor benches, underground parking, apparatus bays and a small plaza.
Construction on the station has been delayed for years after California Gov. Jerry Brown cut funding to redevelopment funds, the result of the state budget crisis. With the expansion of Petco Park and a wave of downtown development, the goal was to break ground back in 2013.
“As we went through all the hurdles, redevelopment and otherwise, it finally got us to this day,” Faulconer said. “We refused to give up; we said we knew that this was where had to have this fire station right here.”
The Rob Wellington Quigley-designed firehouse had an initial price tag of $24 million when first envisioned, a cost some critics said was too steep. At one point in the project, $190,000 was set aside for public art at the station.
Civic San Diego found the $14.6 million in excess redevelopment bond proceeds and development impact fees that will go toward financing the new station, a cost which includes $1.5 million for a new fire engine and fire truck. Civic San Diego, a City-owned nonprofit corporation and entrepreneurial development partner for San Diego’s urban neighborhoods, is managing and overseeing the project.
Local
The station will be located on the Pacific Highway across from the San Diego County Administration Center, a location city leaders say will improve response times for residents and businesses.
Currently, trolleys and trains passing through downtown may delays crews responding to fires west of the tracks.
“In this part of the city, responses take longer than our performance call of seven and a half minutes,” said SDFD Chief Brian Fennessy. “Ninety percent of the time, again, there is no local fire station to serve this area and units coming from the east often face railroad and trolley Crossing delays.”
