Weddle Brothers tapped for Bloomington’s new $6.5M fire department logistics, training center
The selection of Weddle Brothers Building Group as the construction manager (as constructor) for Bloomington fire department’s new logistics and training center has been approved by Bloomington’s board of public works.
The board’s action came at its regular Tuesday night meeting. The new logistics and training center has a not-to-exceed all-inclusive budget of $6.5-million.
Weddle Brothers will receive $10,000 for pre-construction phase work. Weddle Brothers will also receive 2.75 percent the cost of the work, which will not be clear until the guaranteed maximum price is determined.
The center will be constructed on South Walnut Street, on property owned by city of Bloomington utilities, north of the city’s animal shelter. It will be situated near the department’s existing training tower.
The architect for the project is MartinRiley, Inc., which will design the 18,000 square foot facility, part of which will be a pre-engineered metal building (PEMB).
In connection with the new building, improvements to the site will be made, which include a new parking lot, a curb cut onto South Walnut Street, and a connection to the existing fire training tower to the southwest of the new training center.
Bloomington fire chief Roger Kerr has confirmed to The B Square that the design work has started and that the construction start is still on course for January 2025, as described in the information packet for the board of public works. The building is expected to be complete by the end of 2025.
According to a memo to the board of public works, from deputy fire chief Max Litwin, there were two respondents to the city’s RFP for construction manager on the project: Building Associates and Weddle Brothers. Weddle Brothers was chosen after interviews were conducted with both firms and their proposals were evaluated using a scoring matrix.
According to fire chief Roger Kerr, the new building will house all of the department’s backup fire trucks in one location, and also provide a place to wash and clean turnout gear.
(Cleaning firefighter gear is important to make sure that toxic residues from smoke, soot, and chemicals are removed. Such residues could otherwise pose health risks, such as cancer or respiratory issues, if they were to spread to living and sleeping areas at the fire stations.)
According to Kerr, the new building will have space for storage of extra gear and equipment. The new building will also house the department’s training division. The training area will include classrooms, office space, and shower and a changing area for recruit schools.
The close proximity to the department’s current training tower will allow for classroom instruction followed immediately by “hands on” training at the tower.
The new building is also being designed so that if one of the department’s stations had to be taken out of service, the new building could serve as a temporary location for a fire station, according to Kerr.
The Kirkwood Avenue flood of 2021 knocked out the department’s downtown station, which led the department to set up a temporary station in the former Bunger & Robertson building at 4th Street and College.
For the department’s current logistics and training center, the department leases 6,000 square feet of space in a building on McIntire Drive on the western edge of town. The owner of the property is Bloomington Properties Trust.
In 2020, the fire department signed a 5-year lease, but the building has been put on the market for $2.2 million.
The money for the new building is coming from the proceeds of the $29.5 million in public safety bonds that were authorized by Bloomington’s city council in late 2022.
In early February of this year, about a month after she was first sworn into office, Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson spoke at a meeting of Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC), about the need to move ahead with a design and construction of the fire department’s own fire logistics and training facility.
Ten months ago, Thomson put it like this: “The place where the fire logistics is currently housed has been put on the market. So we are about to be unhoused potentially at the fire logistics center.”
In a mid-year report from Thomson, a note about the fire and logistics center says that the public safety bond issuance included a “very conservative” estimate of $2.5 million. But the actual estimate received in 2023, a $9.6 million, and even the scaled-back project in 2024 is expected to cost $6.5 million, according to Thomson’s mid-year report. That matches the $6.5 million not-to-exceed budget amount in the Weddle Brothers construction manager contract.
The choice to follow through on the new fire training and logistics center, despite the higher-than-estimated cost, had an impact on the future location of Bloomington’s police headquarters. Former mayor John Hamilton had planned a move by police from the current 3rd Street headquarters to Showers West. But Thomson nixed that plan in early February.
Thomson’s logic for not following Hamilton’s plan was that the original public safety bond would not have covered all the fire department projects that were needed, if the Showers West project had been pursued.
The fire department projects included the renovation of the downtown station damaged by the 2021 flooding. Station #1 was recently re-opened.
According to Thomson’s mid-year report, the fire station projects were already underway or urgent, compared to the need for new space for police officers.
