Kenai Peninsula Borough officials broke ground yesterday on Central Emergency Services’ new station in Soldotna. Service area voters approved a bond for the project two years ago. Project leads say the new station will accommodate the agency’s growth and provide needed relief from the existing station’s cramped quarters.
On Wednesday afternoon, the dirt lot behind Soldotna’s Wells Fargo bank was crowded with firetrucks, families and the smell of burgers on the grill. Displayed near a cherry red Central Emergency Services fire engine was a rendering of the agency’s new station. For CES Chief Roy Browning, that project has been a long time coming.
“The mission was always to get a right-size facility for our people,” he said.
Browning was joined by other borough officials and agency staff for a groundbreaking ceremony at the future site of the new station. For years, he’s championed the agency’s pursuit of more space.
Last year, CES Station 1 responded to 3,214 emergency calls. That’s as compared to 292 in the early 1980s, when the station was last expanded. The agency’s fire service area spans 12,000 square miles and its search and rescue area covers more than 1,000 square miles including Tustumena and Skilak lakes.
As demand for CES services has gone up, space at the agency’s primary station has stayed the same. That means ambulances bringing patients to the hospital in Soldotna are fighting for space when they go to restock at Station 1. The station’s seasonal equipment is also stored off-site.
Browning said the new station will change that.
“So when the emergency call comes in, we’ll be centrally located and be able to respond with the right equipment for whatever type of rescue instead of sending people out to Mackey Lake to pick up equipment or moving it around in different areas,” he said.
The project is largely made possible by support from central peninsula residents. Service area voters overwhelmingly backed a $16.5 million bond in 2022 that paid for almost the whole project. Last month, Browning asked the borough assembly to greenlight an additional $5 million from the agency’s budget to cover outstanding costs attributed to inflation.
Soldotna-based company Blazy Construction was the project’s low bidder and will build the station for about $18 million.
Browning said some elements of the project were scaled back to ensure it came in under budget. For example, the new station will have fewer living spaces for staff than originally desired. Still, all who spoke at the groundbreaking said the facility will provide needed relief.
Ryan Kapp chairs the Central Emergency Service Area Board. He said they’ve been talking about the need for a new station for as long as he’s been a part of that group — almost 12 years.
“Our first responders deserve the facilities and apparatus necessary to do the job right to serve the members of the service area and respond to emergencies as expeditiously as possible case in point,” Kapp said. “This facility will be key to providing that. Remember, these are the men and women that run in when most are running out.”
The event concluded with a handful of project leads — including Kapp and Browning — donning hard hats and standing with shovels on a pile of dirt. Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche counted them down.
