County reviews design and $11M financing options for new public safety station; no action taken

Amherst County officials presented a conceptual design and financing options for a new combined public safety station on Sept. 16 and the Board of Supervisors took no formal action, instead asking staff for follow-up work sessions on project timing and funding.

Fire Chief Beam introduced Jacob Caldwell of Dominion 7 (architect) and the county's design team. Caldwell presented an 18,000-square-foot single-story station with five apparatus bays, mixed career and volunteer bunk rooms (including separate female and volunteer spaces), a multipurpose training room that can serve as an emergency operations center, space for a sheriff’s office field desk and infrastructure such as a generator pad, diesel tanks and an on-site hydrant.

“...this is a station for today, tomorrow, and the next 40 years,” Chief Beam said, describing continuity-of-operations features that would allow temporary dispatch or emergency operations functions to operate from the station in a disaster.

Estimated costs and schedule

Architect and staff estimates put the building-and-site construction cost at roughly $9.3 million on the current schematic, with allowances and contingencies bringing a subtotal…