SUMMIT, NJ — Summit Mayor Nora Radest, members of Common Council, fire responders and city staff were joined by members of the public for a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 28, at the site of the new Summit Fire Department headquarters at 301 Broad St.
“The old firehouse is over 100 years old, so we’re building this new building. It’ll take about 18 to 20 months to construct, and we’re very excited,” Radest said on Thursday, Oct. 28. “It’s been a long time coming, because the Common Council in 2013 approved a needs assessment, and it took a couple of years to get it to the point where that was necessary, and you go through the long process of choosing an architect and then the drawings, so on and so forth. It’s going to be a great building and it’ll meet the needs of this community, hopefully for another 100 years. Chief Eric Evers is in charge of the project, and LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects are the architects of the project.
“This is awesome,” she continued. “I am grateful to our communications chief for pulling this together and it’s wonderful. … Three fire chiefs that have retired, members of the police department, members of the community, members of some of the larger organizations in town — Overlook Hospital and Bristol Myers Squibb — they all came to support. We have our three members of the state Assembly and the Senate that were here. So, I feel great about it. It’s all taxpayer dollars, so we’re hoping to get some donations, but this is something the community is pulling together and is willing to spend the money and do something that will be good for this community for years. The fire department goes on many calls every day, and they need training and equipment. They’re brave, and we need to be just as brave to help them.”
Deputy Chief Paul Imbimbo, who was in attendance, described what it took to get to this point and the support received from many.
“Back in 2012, we put a team together to start looking at the feasibility of replacing our firehouse,” said Imbimbo on Thursday, Oct. 28. We had to rehab it, and we came to the conclusion that we had to build on a new site, so this is our site. We’ve done years of design work, and we’ve come up with a plan that works well. We had the city property that was available to us, so we’re here after years of work. We’re finally here and breaking ground.
“It’s (an) approximately 14-month build time, but that depends on the weather, and building materials are hard to get right now, so that may make it a little bit longer, but within a year and a half, we hope to be in the new building,” he continued. “I think this event has been awesome. We had a lot of support from a lot of people: the mayor, council, members of the public. We’ve had a great deal of support from the public (and) elected officials, and it’s good to see everyone out here today. We had members from Overlook Hospital and from Bristol Myers Squibb, and they’ve been big supporters of ours throughout the years, so we’re happy to see them here.”
Also in attendance were Union County commissioners; members of the project team Christopher Kehde of LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects and Rob Russo from the project contractor, Brahma Construction; Summit police officers and many more.
Summit Fire Department Chief Eric Evers mentioned how excited he was to see this project come to fruition.
“Today is a great day for our fire department. We’re going to be building a brand new fire headquarters,” Evers said on Thursday, Oct. 28. “Our old building was 100-plus years old. After about 2012, we started working on the concept of building this building, and, today, it’s a reality. So we’re happy to be here and breaking ground on a modern-day fire station.”
A combination department of 32 career firefighters and volunteer firefighters, the department operates four platoons of seven firefighters per platoon. The department has two fire inspectors, in addition to Evers and Imbimbo.
Evers spoke about the renderings of the new building and described key features, which will enable the Summit Fire department to expand resources and educational opportunities, ensuring the department is stronger and better prepared while moving toward the future. He said the total cost of the project is about $16 million.
“Back in early 2000, (with) our former chief, Chris Cotter, we were going through a strategic plan process and we started to realize that the building was not going to last forever, and, looking forward 20 to 30 years down the road, he first planted the seed of having something built,” Evers said. “Then, in 2012, former Chief Joe Houck really started to make it a reality. We started looking at different firehouses and we approached the council, and the first thing was a needs assessment study. They looked at our building to justify building a new firehouse. 2012 was when we really started hitting the ground running, regarding building a new building.
“This is probably our third or fourth revision of renderings, but it’s not a complicated build,” he continued. “It does have a lot of unique features that we need today, such as decontamination areas and a lot of areas for training. We spent a lot of time incorporating training props into the building, so our firefighters are able to train more regularly and become a little more diverse in how they train. Also, keep them in town, instead of going off-site for training. They’ll train right in the building. So that’s one of the key features. But the main thing is firefighter health and safety. Cancer is a big issue in the fire service today. This building is really designed around firefighter health and safety and the public health and safety. When they come to visit us, they can be sure that the building is a safe place to enter with kids and people who come to visit. We’re really proud that a lot of time and attention was spent on the health and safety of the firemen and the community.
“This is great. It’s been a long time coming,” added Evers. “A lot of work goes into building a firehouse. … Taxpayer dollars fund these projects, so it’s very important that we get these concepts out there early. There’s a lot of input from the public and elected officials in making sure that, when we do spend the money, they’re confident that we’ve done everything we could to design a building that meets our needs for today, but also making sure that we spend money wisely. I think we did a good job, because we had great support from not only council but the public, as well.”
Houck was also in attendance and praised everyone for the hard work that made this project happen.
“Although I was chief, Eric had the vision. We had talked about this and we did a feasibility study … and we all knew (the current fire headquarters) needed to be replaced,” Houck said on Thursday, Oct. 28. “But Eric took the reins and spearheaded the effort — him, Deputy Chief Imbimbo and Lt. (Brian) Harnois. I just made the pitches at the council meeting. They’re the ones that did a great deal of the work. I’m happy to see this day come and it’s long overdue.”
Photos by EmilyAnn Jackman and Courtesy of Amy Cairns