AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash.– Airway Heights has a new public safety building on the way and its fire department plans to move in very soon.
It will replace the current fire station, which is 57 years old.
“The building that we’re currently in was built in 1968 and we’ve outgrown it a number of years ago,” said Fire Chief Mitch Metzger.
The upstairs area of the new public safety building by itself is bigger than the current fire station.
“Our kitchen is going to be much bigger than the other one,” Metzger said, “right now, we can’t make two meals at the same time. This will give us an opportunity to expand and treat our firefighters in a manner we want to treat them.”
Metzger said the fire department has seen a 172% increase in calls over the last decade and many of its calls are back-to-back.
He said having the space for training rooms and dorms for the firefighters will help the department serve its community better.
“This is a building that should last our community for the next 50 years. Eventually we’ll have our police department and our city hall and courts move into the same building,” Metzger said, “so we’re real excited to have all of our city services in the same location.”
Part of the public safety building will be used for the Airway Heights Police Department.
Metzger said the police and fire departments working in the same building will offer a lot more opportunities for the two to collaborate and work together.
“It will let us expand on some of our services that we currently can’t provide,” Metzger said, “we hope to have more dorm rooms built in the future phase, which will give us an opportunity to have resident firefighters. That helps save our taxpayers money.”
The later phases of construction will include moving city hall, courts and other city administrative services into the building.
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