Archive: Around Town

Lansing Fire District officials say they are anxious to get the process moving to build a new firehouse in the Village of Lansing.  District Chairman Robert Wagner says there has been a need for a new station for some time, but the process has been held up in order to address concerns of the Village.  "They talked about wanting to contract with the Village of Cayuga Heights," Wagner says.  "We met with the Village of Cayuga Heights Fire Department and the Mayor and decided that wasn't feasible.  Now we're going back to getting the station in the Village."


The problem with Station 5 on Oakcrest Road is that it is too small to accommodate the department's equipment.  Currently it is used for elections and not much else.  Bangs typically parks an ambulance there so they can respond to EMS calls in Lansing faster, but the size of the building and the lot it is on are inadequate for fire equipment.  "We can't put a ladder down there, because it just won't fit," Wagner says, adding that there isn't enough land to enlarge the existing station.

The new station will be big enough to hold a ladder truck, pumpers and EMS vehicles, and will have space for permanent bunkers, fire fighters who actually live in the station and thus can respond faster when an emergency call comes in.  Currently the Central Station on Ridge Road is the only one with bunkers.

The Fire District owns 10 acres across from Station 5, but the Village has told them that it doesn't want a firehouse there, because they view it as a residential area.  As an alternative they have offered the district a piece of land near the Village Office, where a large water tower is currently located.  That tower is slated to be demolished, and Village officials envision a firehouse there as part of what Village Trustee John O'Neill has called a central 'village services complex.'  They have offered the land to the Fire District for a dollar a year, but the attorney for the district has cautioned that the district should have a permanent stake in the land, rather than a lease.


While the Village and the Fire District seem to agree on this plan in general, details like that still need to be negotiated before work on the station can begin.  "We don't know what the Village's schedule is," says District Treasurer George Gesslein.  "We don't know when that tank is going to go.  We don't know any of those things.  There are too many unknowns."

Architect Dennis Ross recently presented the commissioners with some options to decide how the station should be placed on the Village property if it should be built there.  The commissioners chose the option they prefer, that determines the building location, parking locations, access and space for large fire trucks to turn around.  But fire officials say Ross can't move forward with plans until the issue of the land is settled.  "There's not a new rush, it is just something we have to keep moving," Gesslein says.  "It's stagnated for a period of four months, while the architects spent their time reviewing various options."

Gesslein says he estimates the station will cost about $2.5 million.  "It could be more, it could be less," he says.  "It probably will not be less."  Wagner says that selling the old firehouse and the 10 acres across the street could be used to defray some of that cost.  Additionally, Gesslein has amassed about a million dollars in the capital reserve fund, so when the new station needs to be funded it will have a much lower impact on the tax rate.

Meanwhile district officials have to make due with an inadequate facility in an area of Lansing that generates about 50% of all its emergency calls.  "We're three or four years behind the building schedule right now," says District Secretary Alvin Parker.  "And we're still going backwards.  So it's time to start doing something."

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