The former Encinitas Fire Station 1 occupants, who moved out last fall due to structural safety concerns, will be housed on a long-term, temporary basis on the Pacific View Arts Center property, the City Council unanimously decided Wednesday.
Council members said city employees recently considered at least a half-dozen other options, but this was the best choice. The firefighters will be housed in a new modular structure on the southeast corner of the arts center, which occupies a city block on downtown’s Third Street.
They’ll remain there until the city can resolve the situation with Fire Station 1. Settling that issue will likely consist of a multi-year, multimillion-dollar project, involving the demolition of the current, 1950s-era building and the construction of a new structure, city officials have said. Even the temporary Pacific View site proposal won’t come cheap; it’s estimated to cost $1.9 million to purchase the modular building and its accompanying garage, place them at Pacific View, and install various utilities.
Fire Chief Josh Gordon told the council Wednesday that the Pacific View site, which is located just a few blocks south of Station 1, was his preferred choice because it’s close to Station 1, is west of the railroad tracks and can get building-related permits with little difficulty.
“It’s really right in the middle of where all our (call) volume is happening,” he said, mentioning that Fire Station 1 — located near Moonlight Beach and downtown’s Coast Highway 101 — was the busiest station in the city.
In October, after a building inspection found that Station 1’s concrete masonry building could be unsafe in an earthquake, the station’s firefighters and equipment moved into the city’s Station 3 on Orpheus Avenue in Leucadia. It’s not really designed to handle two sets of firefighters and relocating the firefighters there is adding at least one minute to the response call times for the region around Station 1, Gordon said.
Other long-term, temporary locations the department considered, instead of Pacific View, included the lower parking lot at City Hall, part of the Moonlight Beach parking lot and the conversion of a commercial building. Cost, permitting and other issues eliminated those options from consideration, Gordon said.
The temporary modular building that’s proposed to go at Pacific View will be 2,500 square feet. It’ll have a bedroom for each firefighter and be “more comfortable than the past trailers we’ve used,” he said, adding that it could even later be sold or reused for Station 6 in Olivenhain.
Two people — Councilmember Joy Lyndes and the city’s former mayor, Tony Kranz — noted Wednesday that they initially weren’t keen on the Pacific Arts Center proposal when it was first suggested late last year, but said the recent review of other site options shows those would be worse.
“I came to the conclusion that this is our best opportunity for the temporary facility,” Lyndes said, adding that she liked the fire chief’s latest proposed orientation for the modular building because that will reduce its impact on arts center activities. “I think you’re going to be good neighbors and I think you’re going to find good neighbors there.”
Mayor Bruce Ehlers, who was elected in November, said he was pleased that Kranz, the previous mayor, was now backing the proposal, saying, “It sounds like everybody came together in the same consensus.”
