Barnwell City Council approves $1.2 million GO bond to finish fire station

The City of Barnwell has approved the sale of a general obligation bond to fund the completion of the new, long-awaited nearly $5 million fire department.

At their November 6 meeting, the council unanimously voted to approve the first reading of an ordinance allowing the issuance and sale of the bond not to exceed $1.2 million to aid in finishing the station.

General Obligation (GO) bonds are a type of municipal bond used to subsidize the development of capital projects. With this bond, the City of Barnwell can receive funding up to 8 percent of taxable properties within city limits.

The council unanimously approved the city administrator and attorney to move forward in preparing this GO bond at the Sept. 11 meeting.

Financial breakdown

The council was provided with a breakdown of the money that has been budgeted toward the new station thus far: $350,000 from the S.C. Dept. of Public Safety, $500,000 from the S.C. Dept. of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, $2 million in Department of Energy (DOE) funding, nearly $56,000 in interest, and $881 from local fundraisers toward an initial effort to remodel the old station, totaling just over $2.9 million.

Expenses thus far include the $4,785,205 contract with Spratlin & Son Construction, $200,000 for pre-construction design, and $7,186 in miscellaneous expenses - totaling $4,992,391.

This leaves the city in need of $2,085,628 to complete the project.

While the new fire station was initially estimated to cost $4.5 million, extraneous and unbudgeted expenses caused this estimate to increase, according to McEwen at the meeting.

A roughly $3 thousand deposit at AT&T to move a box with a pending invoice, roughly $4 thousand to cut down trees and remove the stumps, and other costs are included in these miscellaneous expenses.

According to McEwen, a small amount of expenses are left to be paid from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding totaling $791,253. Remaining ARPA funding is $1.294 million as of October 2023.

“That is less than the $1.2 million that we are putting in for this, but the contract that we have with Spratlin does not include the fire tower which is something the fire department really wanted to do but we did not put in the budget,” said McEwen.

Background

The station was initially set to be built following the completion of the new $2.5 million police station in 2019. Due to the police station construction causing the city to dip into savings to pay off the remainder of the cost, city officials voted to put constructing the fire department on hold in May 2020.

The existing station on Washington Street was deteriorating, leading many city officials and firefighters to be saddened by this decision to halt the construction three years ago.

The city then aimed to source funding elsewhere. Officials hoped to receive a portion of the $700 million DOE settlement over the storage of plutonium at the Savannah River Site (SRS) to fund the project, however this did not come to fruition.

The city even looked at renovating the existing building which was built between 1953 and 1955, but it was infeasible due to the building’s condition.

In 2022, Senator Brad Hutto and Representative Lonnie Hosey toured the existing station and repurposed $2 million of the DOE settlement funds originally set to construct a multi-purpose building.

With the repurposed $2 million and $350,000 secured by Rep. Hosey in 2019, the city still did not have enough to cover the estimated $4.5 million construction cost, leading officials to approve the sale of the general obligation bond.

New station

The station is located at the corner of Burr and Washington streets and is set to be completed in summer 2024.

Since the groundbreaking in March, trees have been cleared and the structure is beginning to take shape. A crew from Spratlin & Son Construction based in Evans, Ga., has been working to bring the station to fruition.

“We absolutely love working with first responders,” said Jim Gaine, owner of Spratlin & Son Construction. “We've been very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with so many in the fire services as well as the police and EMS.”

The five-bay, double stacked station is being furnished with multiple training facets for firefighters to ensure preparedness on scene.

According to Gaine, the station has five apparatus bays with the capability to store vehicles and firetrucks nose to tail, making it double stacked.

Trucks will deploy from the front of the station on Burr Street, and re-enter the station on Madison Street.

“On that side, they can wash down their trucks, clean up their gear, and then re-enter the station from the back so they're ready to go for the next call,” said Gaine.

Specific details go into building a fire station compared to the many other municipal buildings Spratlin & Son Construction have built.

According to Gaine, site prep work is important when constructing a fire station. The thickness of the concrete along with the reinforcement of the concrete is vital “to the longevity and durability of the station,” due in part to the weight of the fire trucks.

Another factor is preparing the surface correctly, such as where slabs of the interior meet.

“There's some critical details of how we design that so that they don't break up over time,” said Gaine.

Another specific aspect considered in this build is the decontamination process unique to firefighters and their gear.

“When the firefighters return to the building, they need to properly decontaminate themselves from the cancer-causing agents that may come out of a fire,” said Gaine. “In fire stations in general, there's what we call zones to keep the everyday living and working areas away from the cleaning and decontaminating areas.”

Special washing machines called extractors will be in these zones. These machines can properly clean firefighter gear without spreading harmful contaminants into living and administrative spaces.

Some of the training facets Spratlin & Son Construction have implemented into the facility include a fire training tower to practice for multi-story structures or general physical fitness.

“We would love to have that fire tower if we could have it,” said McEwen at the Nov. 6 meeting.

The fire tower is a set of stairs on the back side of the facility meant for training and to dry out hoses. It will also serve as a platform for antennas.

“It is definitely something that is needed, but was kept out of the initial budget in case we didn't have enough money,” said McEwen.

There is also ladder training in one of the bays, and confined space training with a hatch on the second story.

The hatch “is quite small on purpose so that the firefighters can, while they have their gear on, train to descend into the area below,” said Gaine.

Aside from training areas, the station has an education space which will house a staple in the City of Barnwell Fire Department’s history - Big Bertha. This antiquated fire truck was bought for $17,699 when an influx of federal funds came into the county from the development of SRS around 1953.

The education space will also be used to fire training initiatives within the community and serve as a place the public can learn more about fire safety.

Staff will have bunk rooms on the second floor along with a day room, a fitness room, multiple offices, a gathering space, and a training/classroom space that will double as an emergency response center to be used as needed.

Once staff is moved over to the new station, the final phase of the project includes demolishing the old station, and clearing and paving the lot. Demolition and paving the lot are included in the money budgeted for by the city.

Spratlin & Son Construction are experts in fire station designing and construction, having worked on three in recent years. The City of Barnwell Fire Department comes after the company constructed the Cobb County Fire Department in Georgia.

“It has allowed me and our team to have a much greater understanding of why the details are important for placement of doors or, as I mentioned, the durability of the facility because they’re day in and day out, ready to go, and they have to be prepared to take the call when the call comes in,” said Gaine.