A decade after purchasing the land it would sit on, Normal town and fire department officials broke ground Thursday on what will be a new Fire Station 2.
The project is part of an ongoing plan to better align Normal's fire stations with areas of high demand for service calls, said Mayor Chris Koos. The 10,000-square-foot fire station at the northeast corner of Hershey and Shepard roads will be the first the town has built east of Veterans Parkway.
"It's part of an overall strategy of the Town of Normal to have modern facilities that provide the best response times to our citizens in their time of need for our emergency services or fire protection," he told the gathering. "...Hopefully, we can get it done quickly."
Core Construction is handling the project that is expected to be completed within 12-18 months. Once finished,, the hope is to reduce call response times to Normal Community High School and The Villages at Mercy Creek, among other locations in the area.
"Right now, the response times to Normal Community is about 9 1/2 minutes. We'll cut that to about 4 1/2, 5 minutes at the most," Normal Fire Chief Mick Humer told WGLT. "A couple of minutes makes a tremendous amount of difference in a fire situation or a serious medical emergency."
Funding for the $7.7 million endeavor is coming largely from Normal's Fire Station Capital Investment Fund, with the state providing a $1.1 million grant. In August, town council members approved a budget amendment that allocated an additional $2.8 million to the project's total that rose significantly over original estimates.
Humer said eventually the plan is to move Normal's third fire station — located at the corner of Raab Road and Henry Street — somewhere further to the west.
"We don't have land or anything like that yet — [that's] still part of the planning process, " said Humer, noting that land for Fire Station 2 was purchased in 2014. The first part of Normal's ongoing plan to relocate its fire stations wrapped up in 2017, when the town completed a new fire station on Main Street.
Humer said the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues extended the amount of time it took to get station 2 under construction, adding he hopes the third can move more quickly.