Crossville Council Set To Approve Fire Station Bidding

Crossville City Council set to approve the bidding process for its new fire station on Interstate Drive next week.

The council got its first look at the floor plans for an additional fire department facility. The facility is listed as a sum of 10,700 square feet. With concerns of what the cost of the project would be Crossville Fire Chief Chris South said he is very confident that they would stay within budget.

“I think we would be a hair pre-mature to start talking about that at this point,” South said. “Noted in the fact that we do feel very confident after some exploratory discussions, that we can stay in or around what we do have budgeted for this, and I do feel very confident that we can meet that.”

Some features of the facility are a 3-bay split concept, dual entrance and exit, a decontamination shower, and a training arena. South said that the department is planning for growth.

“We also want to make sure that we do not build a fire station for the absolute right now,” South said. “We want to make sure that it would be something that would be sizeable enough to support future growth for our community.”

South said that he is aiming to have a facility that’s durable and affordable to citizens.

“The one thing I want to assure you as your Fire Chief is that I want to make sure that this is affordable for our citizens,” South said. “Obviously this station will way outlive me and will be designed well beyond, but I want it something that will serve our community for many many years to come.”

South said initially, there will be four firefighters at the station at all times but they plan to increase that to six in the future. The facility is desperately needed as the current station is not in an ideal location, South said.

“The city now has moved so far vastly north from that location that with the new technology and the ability to study the city-op we have now,” South said. “The fire station one, the outer part of their zone hits across the street from Fire Station 2, so that puts us already behind the 8 ball for response.”

The department is hoping to break ground sometime in October.