VAN BUREN, Maine — Van Buren officials hope to break ground this year on a new $2.8 million fire station and training center, which Town Manager Luke Dyer said will be among the town’s most significant projects of 2024.
The new facility will replace the existing station on 130 Washington Ave., which was built in 1972 as an add-on to the town office building. That town office had opened in a converted movie theater after the previous one burned down.
“We believe the theater was the only vacant building on Main Street after the fire, so the town bought that building to convert to the town office, and then they added a police department, and a firehouse on top of it,” Dyer said.
But placing a fire department above the town office and police department eventually created problems.
Dyer said there were structural issues. Water began collecting on the floor above the police department. And roughly eight years ago, the ceiling actually fell down.
“It was building up to the point that it finally let go and made a mess,” said Dyer, who was a Van Buren police officer at the time. “It was all over our files and everything.”
The town office has since moved to 320 Main St., and the police department indefinitely closed in 2020.
In 2021, the town submitted an application to U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King for congressional funding to build an entirely new firehouse that would not only be more appropriate for the town’s department, but also fit all its equipment and serve as a training center.
The project is estimated to cost $2.8 million, with $2.177 million of that coming from congressional funding. Dyer said the town is currently seeking additional grant funding to cover the remaining costs, but that the town may need to cover the remainder if it’s unable to secure the grants.
The town has fire equipment in four different buildings: the main building; a space in Keegan, which is a small village just north of Van Buren; a building on the Alexandra Road; and also in a tiny building at Van Buren Cove. The new building will allow the town to get all of these materials under one roof.
The new facility will be 105 feet by 120 feet. It will include four truck bays, an office area, a conference room, a storage area, a kitchen and a mechanical area.
The new facility will also provide firefighter training. Dyer said he was inspired to include this after learning that Brunswick’s police department was offering in-house training that participants could pay a fee to attend.
“When I was applying for this grant for the firehouse, that was one of the first things I thought of,” he said. “We could build the firehouse with a nice training room and offer training countywide or statewide, with a couple certified instructors, and create some revenue for the fire department,” he said.
The building will be on 59 Main St., where a Dead River Co. building currently stands. Dyer said the town has been in talks with Dead River for roughly a year about purchasing the building, but the two sides have not yet settled on a sale price.
The town is currently in the design phase, and officials are working with engineers and associates at Presque-Isle-based BR Smith Associates, Inc. The town is hoping to break ground this year and complete the project next year, according to Dyer.
“It’s a tradition that when you build a new firehouse, the crew pushes the truck in,” he said. “And it is our hope that that would occur in 2025.”
