http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-nor.fire5dec08,0,2558322.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines
By Brian Lockhart
Staff Writer
December 8, 2005
NORWALK -- Mayor Richard Moccia yesterday announced a delay in hiring a construction manager to renovate the 41-year-old main firehouse on Connecticut Avenue to "rethink all of our options, including the possible building of a new fire headquarters."
"It just seems to me all we're doing is pouring money into a building that is not going to look like or be a modern station," Moccia said.
Moccia's decision has the support of Fire Chief Denis McCarthy. "My very first meetings (with city officials) I said, 'We're tearing it down, right?' " McCarthy said. "But it was not going to be reconsidered. This was the budget."
It was the second time in more than five years city officials have changed their position on the future of the Charles A. Volk Central Fire Station.
In 2001, former Mayor Frank Esposito, a Republican like Moccia, was moving ahead with plans to relocate the fire department from Volk to the vacated Norwalk Transit Bus Garage a few blocks south on Fairfield Avenue.
But Esposito lost the 2001 election to Democrat Alex Knopp, who, in 2003, hired Matrix Consulting Group to determine the fire department's needs for the next 10 years. Matrix concluded it would be more cost-effective to renovate the 25,000-square-foot Volk Station and the 26,500-square-foot bus garage to create a firefighting campus.
Though the city earlier this year opened a new $24 million police headquarters, its budget for other projects has been limited by the Knopp administration's investment in a long-term school reconstruction program.
In August, the Norwalk Facilities Construction Commission and the Common Council decided to spend $400,000 to hire Chester-based TLB Architecture LLC to design an overhaul of Volk and transform the bus garage, currently used by the fire department for maintenance, into a fire truck storage and training facility with some office space.
The budget for both was limited to $4 million. City staff recently had interviewed four construction managers and were poised to make a recommendation to the Norwalk Facilities Construction Commission.
Moccia, who defeated Knopp on Nov. 8 with strong support from the firefighters union, said he does not believe the current plan allows for any real modernization of Volk and does not leave any unused space for future expansion.
"It makes more sense to postpone the project, secure additional funding and do (it) once and do it right than to spend millions now, only to have a near-future administration spend additional millions to fix and complete the project," Moccia said.
Moccia, who serves as chairman of the Facilities Construction Commission, said he has asked city staff and TLB Architecture to reconsider renovating Volk and to re-examine the possibility of relocating the station to the former bus garage.
The mayor said he is not looking to spend the amount budgeted for the new police headquarters, but he did not set a financial limit.
"I said, 'See what you can come up with first,' " Moccia said. He said money could be raised by selling the Volk site, long-considered a prime retail location.
Alan Lo, Norwalk's buildings and facilities manager, said enough money remains in TLB Architecture's $400,000 allocation to perform the evaluation Moccia requested.
"But if you go with a new building, that's a totally different project," Lo said.
McCarthy, hired earlier this year by Knopp, has been involved in planning Volk's upgrade. Although he publicly supported the renovation, McCarthy yesterday said he had been airing his reservations privately.
"Not having any flexibility within (Volk's) footprint had me concerned," McCarthy said. "We tried to do the best with the resources given."
Had the construction manager been hired as planned, renovations would have been scheduled to begin at the transit district facility next summer and be completed by early 2007. That would have allowed the city to then relocate some staff and equipment from the Volk building so work could begin there.
"Both buildings are in desperate need of attention, and there is deferred maintenance going on right now," McCarthy said. "Those decisions to defer maintenance will cost us in the long run if we decide to maintain one or both buildings."
Copyright © 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.