CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The tendering process for designing a third fire station in Charlottetown has closed.
Council’s standing committee on strategic priorities and intergovernmental co-operation will be discussing the tenders received at a meeting later this week.
Talks about a third fire station have been ongoing for a number of years. More than once this year, members of council have stated that the project was moving forward but it still has yet to get off the ground. The tendering process for a design happened before but failed to move forward.
A resolution would have seen council award a tender for design consulting services but was pulled off the agenda at council’s meeting in October.
Coun. Greg Rivard, chairman of the standing committee that oversees protective and emergency services, is hopeful things have some traction now.
“The (tendering) process just closed and now we’re going to evaluate the proposals and, hopefully, very soon, pick a firm to design the project," Rivard said.
It will be up to the strategic priorities and intergovernmental co-operation committee to issue a recommending to council for it to move to the next step, which would be actual construction.
Rivard said he hopes council will be voting on awarding a tender to an architectural firm at its next public meeting, Dec. 14.
The city is hoping to have a third station built by November 2022.
This station will be built in the neighbourhood of West Royalty. The city paid $870,000 for 4.5 acres of land on Malpeque Road, between the Atlantic Cat dealership and Moore Well and Drilling Inc. The city’s 2021-22 operational budget contained $165,000 for the design process.
In June, members of city council were given a tour of the new fire station in Cross Roads to get a scope of what Charlottetown’s project will look like.
The fire bays alone take up 12,000 square feet in the new Stratford Emergency Centre, which also houses space for the RCMP, Island EMS and meeting areas.
An insurance underwriters report, which came out a number of years ago, indicated fire coverage in Charlottetown was becoming a concern in the west end due to the rapid growth of the neighbourhoods of Winsloe, West Royalty, West Royalty Industrial Park and the biocommons.
During this process, the city also decided that it was going to keep Station 2 in Sherwood open.
This project could be on the city’s capital project list next spring.
Dave Stewart is the municipal reporter for The Guardian.
