Muncie council approves money and build agreement for fire station 5
The Muncie City Council this week approved an agreement to rebuild fire station number 5 along Tillotson Avenue. IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports.
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With a limited amount of space at the current station site near Ball State University and IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, two new fire stations have to be built – one temporary and one permanent. Greg Martz with GM Development explains.
“That temporary facility is where the Little Red Door used to be located, across from, basically across from Wendy’s on Jackson,” he said. “By the time the construction on the temporary facility is done, then the staff, the fire department, can move out of the existing station 5. And then the existing station 5 would then be demolished, and then that would be when that roughly 14-16 month construction would begin on the new station.”
Martz says the temporary station will be constructed while the new permanent station is designed.
The permanent station 5 will be two stories and include enough equipment bays to bring back a large aerial truck needed to fight fires at tall buildings.
Muncie Fire Chief Dan Burford says that truck had to be moved to station 2 in Heekin Park when Muncie added ambulance service to fire stations.
“It is the only truck in the city that can actually be counted as an aerial for the ISO ratings for insurance. And it has to be housed in proximity to your tallest structures. So that is station 5.”
Muncie has studied what fire stations need replacing or renovating since 2020. A new proposal for station 5 was talked about in a 2023 mayoral “state of the city” speech. A brand new station 6 was completed last year.
The new station project is welcome news to firefighters stationed there. Jennay Jackson has been with the department for six years and has been stationed at the Tillotson location for five months.
“I don’t know if the community is really aware that we are living in sewage most of the time,” she said. “I just wanted to advocate for us, because we don’t get to go home at the end of the day. We don’t do eight hours at an office that’s deplorable – we live there a third of our life.”
At a public services committee meeting, city council member Jerry Dishman confirmed the two-story station will have both stairways and a fire pole.
As laid out in a newly passed city ordinance, city-owned bonds to pay for the new station can’t exceed $11.5 million. Muncie Mayor Dan Ridenour says Ball State University has committed to contributing $1.5 million toward the overall cost.
Stephanie Wiechmann is our Managing Editor and “All Things Considered” Host. Contact her at slwiechmann@bsu.edu.
