The proposed 9,200-square-foot training facility for Owensboro Fire Department is expected to cost $5 million. Officials said it’s long past time for a new facility, and members of OFD are excited for the upgrade.
“We have a dated and somewhat antiquated training center that needs to be replaced. So we’ve got a lot of happy firefighters … it’s something that I think will help attract and retain firefighters and something that is long overdue,” Assistant City Manager Lelan Hancock said Tuesday during a City Commission meeting.
The current training facility is on 14th Street. The proposed upgrades include clearing the lot containing the current training tower along with removing part of the former ABC Rental building that the city purchased last October.
As part of the renovation, that building will be converted into classrooms.
The facility will allow the team to bring apparatus in, and allow OFD to train during cold weather and rain which they are not able to do currently.
This facility will include showers, a four-story fire tower, fitness areas, locker rooms, meeting rooms, and training bays.
There will also be an additional facility for storage supplies.
Daviess County Fire Department will also be able to utilize the facility for training. Daviess County Fiscal Court has already pledged $250,000 toward the project.
Bids for the project are expected to open in November, should the City accept the plans forward.
Battalion Cheif Colter Tate said the training facility will better equip firefighters when responding, benefitting the community in the end.
“The reassurance we get as a community is that once these guys hit the street, they know what they’re doing,” Tate said. “They don’t have the experience in years but they have the basic knowledge to provide that service and be an effective member of that engine company, truck company or that rescue squad.”
