Inver Grove Heights has secured its preferred spot to build a fire station for the city’s southern half.
The city has signed purchase agreements to buy 11.68 acres of land, located south of U.S. 52 and west of Concord Boulevard, at a cost of $1.93 million. The sale’s closing is expected before the end of the month.
“This is a huge step forward in this process that’s been going on for a while,” Mayor George Tourville said this past week after the council approved purchase agreements for the land at 9250 Courthouse Boulevard Court.
In 2015, a fire station committee ranked six recommended sites, all in the middle of the city and near main roads and highways, and the one on Courthouse Boulevard Court was at the top of the list, City Administrator Joe Lynch said.
The city had the triangle-shaped property appraised, but the city council considered it too high and directed city staff to negotiate with two other landowners. When those discussions went nowhere, council members asked for a second appraisal of the first property and “they liked the price point,” Lynch said.
The city only needs five acres for a fire station, but the landowners, William and Muriel Carlson, would agree to the sale only if the city bought their entire property, Lynch said. The city plans to eventually sell the 6.68 acres it does not need, possibly for commercial development.
A new station will cut between five to eight minutes off firefighter drive times to the southern areas, where average response times are about 16 minutes — or double that of most other areas, Fire Chief Judy Thill said.
“I’m excited. The fire department looked at this need for a third fire station long before I started,” said Thill, who in 2007 was hired as the city’s first full-time fire chief.
Inver Grove Heights built its two existing stations in the northern third of the city in 1970 and 1987, when the city’s population was about half of what it is now.
To compound matters, city officials say, more development has moved to the south, and additional expansion is planned for the northwest area in the coming years.
The fire department has 65 paid on-call firefighters who cover the city’s 32 square miles. This year, the department is on pace to respond to more than 1,500 calls (fire, medical and rescue), which is up from the recent annual average, Thill said, partly because in 2016 the city switched to a “duty crew” service model where three paid on-call firefighters are at the station in shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“We’re now picking up different types of medical calls that we didn’t go to in the past,” Thill said.
Last month, the city council hired an architectural firm to design final plans for the new station — a project that with land cost, sewer and water connections and other site improvements could reach $10 million, Lynch said. It will be financed by general obligation bonds.