‘A Triumph’: New Auburn Fire Department Building Unveiled With Ribbon Cut | Local News | Auburn, New York State | Auburnpub.com

Sloan and Laraway, who retired since 2006 and 2004, respectively, were among more than 150 people on Thursday who attended a ribbon cutting for the Auburn Public Safety Building at 31 Seminary St., the new fire station. . Other emergency management services will also be hosted on site.

After the ceremony, Sloan and Laraway said they have fond memories of the department’s former location, 23 Market St., which the department has used since the 1930s. They both noted that with larger equipment over time. years ago, the department had grown too large for the current location when they both retired in the mid-2000s. Looking at the new facility and the fire trucks inside, they said they were in awe.

“I hope it will last as long as the old one,” Sloan said.

The fire department is not entirely moved out of the Market Street location, but this building will still be used by the Auburn Police Department and the new Auburn City Ambulance Department.

Auburn City Manager Jeff Dygert Dygert said the project was carried out at “significantly lower cost than expected.” He said there had been challenges with supply chains, collecting the appropriate materials and mobilizing the necessary manpower, but the project management team saw the project through these problems.

Fire Chief Mark Fritz said the Market Street building has served the department well for the past 90 years, but noted equipment has grown bigger and heavier, service calls have increased and the number of services provided by AFD has increased over the decades. He said the new location is bigger and has a training room, decontamination rooms, laundry rooms and more.

Fritz said after the ceremony that he hopes the fire department will be fully relocated to the new location by the end of next week, but it could be the following week or the week after.

“Things are progressing here,” he said. “I hope that potentially by the end of next week we will be operating from here.”

At the ceremony, State Senator John Mannion praised the efforts to have the building constructed.

“This is a new public safety building, and it is a triumph of state and local planning and partnership. Projects like this don’t happen by accident, and they don’t happen without hard work, ”he said.

After Fritz cut the ribbon, members of the audience were able to look around the installation.

The $ 10 million project was funded by the city through debt, $ 2 million from a regional consolidated state grant program, and $ 1.2 million from the Revitalization Initiative of the State. downtown state. The company has been in the making for years. In 2015, an assessment of the operations, facilities and needs of the Auburn Fire and Police Departments identified various inefficiencies with the current location of the two departments. Auburn City Council approved the purchase of the Seminary Street property from Seminary Commons, LLC for $ 990,000 in September 2019.