Come 2020, construction will begin on two brand new facilities to relocate Chula Vista fire stations 5 and 9, repositioning Chula Vista firefighters to have faster response times. The grand openings are scheduled for spring 2021.
“Since the two fire stations were built in the early ’60s, and in dire need of being rebuilt, with Measure P funds the fire department decided to leverage the opportunity to provide an improvement to our response network on the west side,” Fire Chief Jim Geering said at the City Council meeting on Nov. 19.
Measure P is a half-cent sales tax in place for a total of 10 years to fund high priority infrastructure needs in Chula Vista. Collection of the tax began in April 2017, and the total amount projected to be raised by the tax is $178 million, according to the city of Chula Vista website.
For the design and construction of both new fire stations, the estimated total cost is $17.9 million, according to senior engineer Jonathan Salsan.
Fire Station 5 will be relocated from 391 Oxford St. to a new 12,310-square-foot station located on Orange Avenue near Fourth Street, complete with eight bunk rooms and three apparatus bays, where fire trucks and emergency response vehicles are stored.
Fire Station 9, which is currently located at 266 E. Oneida St., will be relocated to a new 13,080-square-foot station at Naples Street and Moss Street with eight bunk rooms and four apparatus bays.
“We’re really in a position where we’re gonna have two new beautiful fire stations that give us really improved operational functionality, currently and in the future, give us much better capacity for storage and fire apparatuses and our personnel to be housed, provide much safer facilities than some of our current facilities,” CVFD Fire Chief Jeff Peter said at the City Council meeting on Nov. 19.
He added that durability has been a priority in the planning process to ensure that facilities don’t need a lot of maintenance later on.
On Nov. 19, the City Council approved resolutions to close the segment of Alpine Avenue between Naples and Moss streets. and the segment of Moss Street between Alpine Avenue and Naples Street for Fire Station 9 purposes, and to allow the use of the land occupied by the closed streets.
The relocation will improve initial attack force response times, where the first unit arrives on the scene with four firefighters, by 17.25 percent overall, according to a report presented to the City Council on Nov. 19 by city staff, Geering and Peters. Advanced life support calls should also improve by 0.10 percent, according to the report.
Geering said the performance improvements were calculated by using Apparatus Deployment Analysis Module technology, which uses historical data, map data and a projection algorithm that provides the impact on response times due to added units or stations and relocation.
