New fire station about 25% done

FORT MADISON – The $7 million Fort Madison fire station that is currently under construction is coming along according to schedule.
The facility designed by Solum and Lange and being built by SG Construction with area subcontractors is set to open in the Spring of 2027.
Fort Madison Fire Chief Chad Hannum said the building is coming along quickly and is about 25% done with hopes of having the exterior up this fall, so workers can be out of the elements for the remainder of the interior work, with additional exterior finishing being done in the spring.
“We’re somewhere between 25 and 30% completion,” Hannum said. “It looks like they’re really coming along because what we see is the structure going up, and they’re hoping to have it dried in by the end of October. But there’s an awful lot of work, and a lot more of the expense, over the wintertime that, unfortunately, no one will be able to see until the finished product.
He said the steel part of the structure, the apparatus bay, has all been erected. The living quarters is all stick built except for the middle where there are some rooms that are masonry and that’s part of the transition from the quarters to the bay.
“A lot of that had to do with architects and engineers and earthquake stuff and wind and things they take care of that I don’t have to worry about. It’s also part of the fire code,” Hannum said.
He said the training room/meeting room will also double as a site where LeeComm could dispatch in the event something would happen to their facility in Montrose at the sheriff’s office.
“If something were to happen there, they could dispatch mobile now, but they would be able to bring that here, plug in, and away they go,” he said. “But that building was built with the same considerations as this, so they should be fine.”
He said the cement part of the project is about 80% done, but the truck bay floor needs done and that surface will have in-floor heating, but they have to wait until the exterior is enclosed before pouring those floors.
“They have a substantially completed goal of the beginning of April with the fire department moving over to the new facility by the end of April.

“So far, they’re on schedule, and it’s been pretty impressive,” Hannum said.
“SG does a really good job of keeping everybody, including myself, on it and tells us if we want to stay on course, everybody needs to keep moving," he said.
Hannum also gave credit to John Lang, Clint Harland, and Justin Cain who helped picked up the slack and were on a committee of firefighters who participated in the design of the building.
The original contract for the project was just shy of $5.8 million. The last numbers that came in on pay applications from SG Construction had the project at just over $1.4 million that has been paid.
The city passed a referendum for $12 million for the building, but only issued bonds for $7.25 million. Hannum said the city has only seen about five change orders and those to date are still under $600.
However, he said there was another change order on some plumbing that was missed in the design.
“It’s such a big design you try to catch everything, but you just can’t catch it all, but so far we’ve been pretty happy.”
The plan was to seek grants to help offset the costs, but Hannum said when the city started looking for grants, municipal grants were very hard to come by so the city cut the project in half to about $6 million. The rest of the bonded funds could be used for furnishings and some digital and information technology compatibilities with LeeComm dispatch.
The station will have an IT sufficient room, a weight room, sleeping quarters, and living quarters with kitchen, meeting and training rooms, showers and bunker washing stations and other facilities.
The station is also expecting a new fire truck in 2027. The city ordered the truck in 2023 at a cost of $940,000 and was told it would be four years before the truck was assembled and delivered, Hannum said.