Adam Beres, Manager of Fleet, Equipment and Purchasing, City of Welland, with special guest Chief Adam Eckhart of Welland Fire & Emergency Services
Welland Fire and Emergency Services (WFES) consists of 51 career firefighting staff and 45 volunteers across three stations within the City of Welland.
The city recently constructed two state-of-the-art facilities, and a third station is scheduled to open in the Summer of 2024.
The new headquarters, located at 400 East Main Street in Welland, reimagined the former Atlas Steel site, which was demolished in 2007. The former brownfield site was recently a finalist in the 2022 Brownie Awards.
This facility replaced the aging headquarters at 636 King St., which has since been demolished, with the new Fire Station 2 located directly behind and on the same parcel.
Fire Chief Adam Eckhart recalls the day-to-day functionality of the former headquarters, saying, “It was a challenging building considering the old headquarters was not originally constructed as a fire hall. The old, dated building presented challenges, from accessibility to proper quarters to proper hygiene, and ventilation. It was a very uncomfortable building that did not support our growing needs.”
“With the age of everything, the repairs were increasing in frequency and cost. We had equipment we couldn’t run at the same time as other equipment was running because we didn’t have enough electrical service to the building. It came to the point where the funding used to keep this building operating would have been better spent to support a new facility.”
It was clear funding needed to be arranged to build much-needed new facilities to:
- Support the operation.
- Provide much-needed upgrades to promote improved response times.
- Improve service levels for the residents of Welland.
- Provide a better training environment for the emergency response teams.
One of the many strategic considerations was determining the optimal placement of the new facilities. “There’s a lot to think about when positioning fire halls,” explains Chief Eckhart. “The biggest one is response time while considering the unique geography within Welland, such as the canals and a rail system. Having a presence downtown is important since the closing of the former Central (historic) Fire Hall. Being close to the center of the city allows us to consolidate our special resources, which includes specialized staff and equipment as well as our fire prevention team. The size of the lot (at 400 E. Main) supports the future build of the training center at the headquarters as well”.
With headquarters built on the former Atlas Steel site and Station 2, where the former headquarters was located on King Street, a legacy of former functional properties is being carried on as the King Street location is poised well for access to service the citizens living within that area of the city.
Careful strategic consideration has also been given for the upcoming build of Fire Station 3, which will be located on Prince Charles Drive. “It’s the next logical build for the department, which will replace a 60-year-old building that again has some significant challenges”, reflects Chief Eckhart. “It’s a wise time to relocate and build this facility outside of the downtown core and triangulate the city with enough response overlap the fire districts support one another. This triangulation is a big part of a strategic three-station model with future consideration of a fourth toward the northern end of the city as that future development may dictate.”
The new Headquarters and Fire Station 2 were built utilizing a “Hybrid Delivery Model,” which is a model where the awarded vendor acted as consultant and the General Contractor oversaw (with consultation from the Welland Fire and Emergency Services steering committee) the design and was responsible for hiring and managing most of the trades and being accountable for the work required to build the facilities.
“There certainly were challenges during the pandemic of supply chain disruptions and cost controls, plus site work remediation,” recalls Chief Eckhart. “It was complex, which we anticipated given the property’s history. It took some creativity to overcome, and we did our best to make lemonade from lemons. We knew there were foundations in place that needed to be removed, but it was tough to anticipate the extent of what needed to be dealt with. Some creative solutions were crushing the removed concrete on site rather than hauling it away so that we could turn it into an aggregate so only top dressing was needed for the final few inches. We had a good engineering firm involved with the site work, assessment, groundwater qualities and soil conditions, which allowed us to create a berm on site to promote a naturalized green backdrop.”
Trying to reinvent a former industrial property and essentially repurpose the entire area required a collective effort to complete just the earthworks alone so the building could finally begin taking shape. “Looking at it overall, it certainly has been a very positive project,” Chief Eckhart reflects. “I certainly would not discourage anyone from purchasing a brownfield site or considering a site that requires remediation. A lot of potential can be found depending on need with the right approach.”
“The safety measures in our new building allowed us to review energy performance and define the quality of life for those that work within the facility. There is an area separated for the decontamination of gear with proper equipment in place for the task. There are multi-purpose rooms for training, meetings, and acting as the Emergency Operations Centre. From a maintenance perspective, many of the items within the building have a greater than twenty-year life cycle to support the longevity of the building, reducing maintenance costs and supporting public safety for many decades to come.”
Fire Station 2, built behind the former headquarters on King Street, complements the new headquarters. This purpose-built facility also considered the same longevity and reduced maintenance costs during the design and construction. “We want the building to be high performing; we want to reduce the demand on our energy system, which is also a secure building that promotes a good quality of life for staff working within the facility.”
Fire Station 3 is going to be built with a slightly different model; it is a design–build which the firm will act as the architect and builder. This facility will be close to the corner of Thorold Road and Prince Charles Drive. When asked which methodology the Chief has preferred (the hybrid delivery vs design-build), Chief Eckhart is undecided. “I think it’s early to compare the two processes, given this is a less complex build. The impressions and diligence of the contractor have so far shone through, but it does create positive chemistry to hear out what the owner needs and hopes to accomplish. These instructions can then be passed to the design team with a pro versus cons list from the eye of the owner. We are carrying the momentum of the other successful builds with us. This firm is also experienced at building fire halls in the area, so they bring that to the table as well. We are bringing ours, creating an automatic synergy beginning to propel us forward quickly.”
Chief Eckhart offers the following from his firsthand experience with the fire hall builds: “Recognize a breakout budget and allocations within that budget as early as possible and always have a macro view of a push or pull here will have a cause and effect there. You need to put in financial checkpoints regularly to make sure everyone has the same compass and is using the same map at the same point in time and to look at predictions such as pre-ordering, when possible, to mitigate supply chain and costing uncertainty, especially if you have means such as shipping containers on-site as sources of storage. You must view your budget while seeking these opportunities to avoid potential inflationary costs. At the same time, you don’t want to double or triple-handle units, especially those for rooftop installation, so a just-in-time model for those components may make more sense to reduce those additional handling costs or potential material handling equipment needs. Finally, following an accountable process, however logical and sequential and planning the material arrivals, when possible, promotes a strategy of designing the assembly of these materials to reduce your duplicate material handlings.”
“One thing to certainly consider is, when you look at building construction, typically you have a developer hire a builder, and they build the office building, with a budget of X, and it looks terrific, it has marble flooring, great lighting, building and fire codes are all met and there is a massive WOW factor, but nowhere in there is there a consideration of what costs are involved in operating that building and what could be done to reduce the overall operating costs, and this was something for our team to consider, given the cost of construction. In the case of a developer, they build it and then sell it. They have short-term ownership, which we looked at the other way around. We’re building it and may spend a little more to save continuously as energy costs go up, and we quickly realize that return on investment, which we have been successful in doing. Some will say your construction cost is about 20 per cent of the 50-year ownership of the building. We are likely closer to 12 to 13 per cent towards the construction cost. We looked at the long term of the 50-year view, and when you start crunching those numbers, especially on a procurement side, buying a triple-glazed window, as an example, comes with a 25-year life cycle which is a long time to get out of commercial grade glass. We also tried to consider the operating costs of energy efficiency. To meet the energy efficiency performance that we did, we could rely on our resources without the need to order specialty equipment. We have reduced our operating costs thanks to the construction of these new buildings.”
There were other strategic considerations for the buildings, such as the speed at which the doors actuate to deploy trucks and equipment as quickly as possible. “These doors actuate 40 seconds faster than our previous doors,” confirms Chief Eckhart. “There is nothing else I can do than invest in a quality garage door that will get a full-time fire truck to your door nearly a minute faster. Every link in the chain shares some of that responsibility, the longer the link, the longer the response time.”
When considering how existing and future equipment will be deployed among the three facilities, Chief Eckhart explains, “There are the optics that we have a larger space, now we must grow into it, but the reality is quite the opposite. The old buildings were preventing us from getting the additional equipment we needed at the time. The reality is we need more apparatus and needed a place to store them properly. The department capacity is required to be increased to keep up with the growth of Welland, which we have been unable to do year after year. We haven’t had the space or facilities to support the staff and training to keep up with these growing needs or vehicles to get where they needed to be to support the Welland of today and the Welland of the future. We need to ensure we have the proper ratio of staff to utilize the equipment to offer an exceptional level of service across the community.”
“Fortunately, we are overcoming that barrier and finally picking up momentum. We are confident that the buildings we have constructed, the equipment we have purchased, and the staffing plan will position us well for the years to come and continue to provide an excellent service for the residents of Welland.”