New fire halls for Fort Kent and Ardmore are continuing to forge ahead.
The MD of Bonnyville council approved the purchase of two parcels of land from Muni-Corr during their Sept. 12 meeting, for a total cost of approximately $210,000.
“We received word back from Muni-Corr that they had their appraisal done for Fort Kent and Ardmore. Their policy is to sell it for the appraised price,” explained interim CAO Roy Doonanco. “They came in with $134,000 for the one in Ardmore, and $76,000 for Fort Kent.”
The parcel in Ardmore comes in at .8859 of an acre, as the new building will house the fire hall, along with storage for MD equipment. In Fort Kent, the piece of land is just under half of an acre in size.
Reeve Greg Sawchuk expressed they're excited to be moving forward on the project.
“The drawings, I just saw some of the early ones (last week) and the buildings look fantastic. They're meant to be aesthetically pleasing so they fit into the two hamlets nicely and the folks who live there will be happy to see a nice building.”
After close to 60 years of use, it was determined earlier this year that new buildings for the Fort Kent and Ardmore fire departments were a necessity. In July, the Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority, with support from the MD, announced they would be moving forward with construction of two separate halls as opposed to one in a central location.
Designed with the future in mind, the new buildings will allow for more space for training classrooms, office space, and take into account the increased size of modern firetrucks.
Around $2.5-million has been budgeted for the project, which Sawchuk expects to see take shape sometime in the spring of 2019.
“The next step will be for those drawings to come forward, to put an actual cost to them, to make sure they meet the requirements of the firefighters, as well as in the case of the Ardmore hall, it's going to have storage in there for graders as well.”
He added, “The engineering is going to take a little bit... It will most likely come back to council for approval within the next couple of months, and at that point, they'd go out for tender in January/February with the intent for building starting in the spring.”
