The City of Estevan undertook an extensive survey of the public in 2015, asking citizens their thoughts on a variety of topics to find out priorities and learn their satisfaction levels.
In most cases, the survey told us what we already knew, including the fact that the department with the highest level of satisfaction was the Estevan Fire Rescue Service. The fire department (along with the police department) tend to be the most well-received municipal services. Most people respect how protective services personnel put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.
But you have to wonder how many people had been in the Estevan fire hall, and seen how cramped the building really was. It might have been sufficient when it was built in 1961, but it’s not the 1960s any more, and at about 6,000 square feet, Estevan needed a large building for a department that people respected so much.
There had been plans for years to construct a larger building at the north end of the city, but it would have carried a price tag of $7 million to $10 million.
So when the city had the opportunity to purchase the former Murray GM building for $2.3 million, so that it could serve as the home for the fire department for decades to come, they had to jump at that chance.
Yes, it cost a lot of money, and there were costs for the renovations. But it’s better to spend that money, and get a building that can efficiently be converted from a vehicle dealership to a fire hall, than to spend $7 million on a new building in a few years.
If you could select one type of building that could be converted into a fire hall, it would likely be a dealership, since the service department could be used to store the fire trucks, thanks to its size, height and large bay doors.
The old dealership is a big building, nearly three times the size of the old fire hall, and it has a large parking lot, but now the fire department has all of its fire trucks and other apparatus in one building. With the old fire hall, one of the fire trucks, and some of the other rescue equipment, were at city yard. Not necessarily the best approach for handling protective services.
The fire department had also reached its maximum number of firefighters in its old building, because it couldn’t accommodate any more lockers in the building.
Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service dedicated a lot of hours of sweat equity converting the dealership building to a fire hall, saving money on contractors.
You could argue that the new fire hall is too big for the department, but there were people who said that when the previous building opened more than 50 years ago, and we know how that turned out. The fire department is making good use of the added space.
The fire department now has a building that is worthy of a service that we previously said we appreciate so much.
Purchasing the dealership and turning it into a fire hall is likely the smartest decision city council will make during this term.
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