Nahant hears feasibility study recommending new police and fire options; town-owned DPW/elementary site emerges as leading location

Jeff Shaw, principal at Context Architecture, told the Nahant Board of Selectmen on April 8 that his firm’s feasibility study found the town’s current police and fire buildings are aging and operationally constrained and outlined options for replacement or consolidation. “We specialize in public safety facilities,” Shaw said, describing a four‑part study that examined existing conditions, space needs, site selection and concept designs.

Sean Coven, the project manager, said the existing fire station at 67 Flash Road sits in the floodplain and occupies most of its lot, including land the consultants flagged as within a natural‑resources district. He said the building lacks accessible entrances, has tight apparatus bays and has no functional decontamination sequence or sprinkler system. “The station does currently reside within the flood plane,” Coven said, adding that there has not yet been recorded flooding at the station but that the location is a long‑term concern.

The study also found the police station — a repurposed former school on a small lot — has limited space for expansion, no elevator and second‑floor areas that do not meet accessibility standards. Coven said any significant upgrade to either building would likely require bringing the entire facility into current code standards.

Consultants presented programmatic projections to guide design. For the police department the study modeled a range of options (a single‑story 13,000 sq. ft. footprint or a two‑story ~16,000 sq. ft. building) with day‑shift officers increasing from nine to ten and total staff moving from 25 to about 28 in the program projection. For the fire department the study projected a headquarters in the roughly 23,000 sq. ft. range to accommodate current and projected apparatus, dorms, training and storage; current fire staffing was shown as four day‑shift firefighters and 27 total staff with a projection to six day shift and 46 total staff in the program scenario.

Consultants tested eight candidate sites. Coven said the only town‑owned parcel large enough and outside the floodplain that could accommodate the largest program — and thus the only clearly feasible town‑owned site for either a large new fire station or a combined public‑safety building — is the field between the DPW yard and the elementary school. Other parcels considered included the existing Flash Road fire lot (which would require rezoning and creative access solutions), two lots behind the existing police station (complicated by topography and a collocated radio/cell tower), and privately owned options such as the rectory and the country‑club lot (which the report noted would require acquisition).

The report showed two ways to proceed for the town: build two separate, right‑sized facilities (one police, one fire) on different sites or consolidate programs into a single public‑safety building. Shaw told the board a consolidated facility often yields programmatic efficiencies — consultants estimated roughly a 10% savings on program costs — but it is a larger single up‑front expense and requires careful planning about how departments co‑locate and operate together.

Chiefs and board members raised operational questions during the presentation. A chief described that the fire department currently uses a temporary tent structure put up in 2019 whose exterior skin has a 10‑year design life and is now showing age; the chiefs said that structure and the century‑old portions of existing facilities make the case for moving beyond stopgap fixes. The fire chief also discussed call‑volume trends and the benefit of designing dorm and training space to expand capacity during storms.

Consultants said the study included appendices with consultant reviews of existing conditions and that the next step is detailed cost estimating; they asked the board to allow additional public outreach and time to finalize the report. Because of timeline constraints, the consultants and staff said the schematic‑design warrant article will not appear at the upcoming annual town meeting and recommended it be indefinitely postponed pending final report and outreach.

Resident Jean, speaking during public comment, expressed support for moving the project forward and said the chiefs’ daily experience gives credibility to the study’s recommendations. The board moved to adjourn after the public comment period and took a roll‑call vote to end the meeting.

The consultants will return with cost estimates and a finalized report and the town will undertake further outreach before deciding whether to proceed with schematic design or a warrant article.