GLENDALE, MO. (KMOX) – Glendale is about to spend nearly $6 million on a new fire station to be built next to the existing one, plus police station and city hall renovations.
City Administrator Jaysen Christensen says the original firehouse is 91-years-old, built in 1926, and can’t handle modern needs.
“The newer trucks now are too big for what we can accommodate. The floors of the fire station, they could not hold the weight of the new trucks, and were actually cracking,” he says.
The city issued $8 million in bonds and will pay them back through a property tax hike voters approved in August. They also approved a quarter cent fire sales tax that’s expected to raise $70 thousand a year to fund operations.
Christensen says the city also considered whether it actually needed a fire department.
“The National Fire Protection Association has certain standards about how far the stations should be from homes. There’s a four minute travel time standard and Glendale could not be serviced from any of the surrounding cities within that four minute travel time standard,” he says.
Construction should start later this month.
