GREENSBORO, N.C. — Greensboro voters approved $14 million in bond money Tuesday to help the Greensboro Fire Department improve four of its stations which fire officials said are in need of major work.
The bond passed overwhelmingly Tuesday with 76% of voters approving of the bond measure.
Station 8 off of Coliseum Boulevard, Station 10 off of High Point Road, Station 14 on Summit Avenue, and Station 40 on Pisgah Church Road are all slated to get improvements.
"Instead of just replacing a station, (we’re doing) a total refurb,” said Greensboro Fire Department Deputy Chief Dwayne Church. “We think that that's going to help us be better stewards of the money and we are hoping that we can spend on four stations what one station could've cost.”
Church said one of the biggest improvements will be making the bay doors larger. Right now, the doors are 11 feet by 11 feet so the department has to be cautious with trucks that are larger than those measurements. The department also plans to put in high-speed roll-up doors that Church said open in about two seconds, as opposed to the current doors which open in about 20 seconds.
“For (the Station 14) doors to come up it takes over 20 seconds for those to get all the way up and then you have to pull the fire truck out (and) wait for the door to close completely so that’s 40 seconds in time that we are losing,” Church said.
Many of the stations getting upgrades were built in the 1970s, like Station 14 which needs some air conditioning improvements, a new roof, more energy-efficient windows, and new bay floors.
“The bay floors now when it was built in 1972 the fire trucks that came in and rode through all the time several times a day (were) a lot lighter than the trucks that we have now so the more additional weight is tearing up our bay floors,” said Church.
Church said there were also no female firefighters when the stations were built in the 1970s, so the money will be used to help make the spaces more accommodating for the more than 30 female firefighters in the city now.
“We have made it work over the years,” said Church. “We’ve had to make that work and some of the stations have something as simple as a lock on the doors and signs that it’s occupied or unoccupied so we’ve had to make that work and make that adjustment.”
The Greensboro City Council will need to meet later this summer to discuss a specific timeline for construction.
“Construction will take a little while because they will have to go through the engineering and the planning before you actually start construction, “ said Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan about work on all five bond projects approved Tuesday.