Construction on the new EMS headquarters is both on time and on budget, according to town officials.
Residents approved a complete renovation of the building at 448 Sport Hill Road in February, and work began in the spring.
“I would say we’re just in and around the 50 percent mark. We have completed all the demolition and they are almost done with framing out the rooms,” said EMS Chief Jonathan Arnold. “It was a heavy, heavy renovation. There’s not much left of the original building.”
The work is expected to be completed in March with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Arnold said.
Crew members have relocated to a house on a farm owned by Gilbertie’s Organic Farm on Sport Hill Road.
At the Feb. 11 referendum, residents voted 1,175-526 in favor of allocating $2,951,613 from the undesignated fund balance for the project. But it’s estimated the cost to the town will be $1,833,458 after account for other funding the town has secured, including $188,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds; $821,792 from the EMS Trustees; $199,539 from the state and $20,000 from the Board of Finance.
The approval culminated in the long-awaited goal to renovate and update the headquarters. The process included the formation of a building committee and fundraising efforts by EMS.
“It was difficult to put all the pieces together, but in the end the town voted 3-to-1 in favor of it,” said First Selectman David Bindelglass.
The interior of the 6,200-square-foot building has been gutted and reconfigured, making it a more functional space for the service. The project also updates the utilities, which in some cases were woefully outdated.
When the interior demolition began, the need for the work became clear, said Bindelglass.
“As bad as we thought it was, when we started taking down the walls, it was a lot worse,” he said.
When the work is completed, everything about the building will be updated. “The renovation did a lot of different things for us,” said Arnold. “It corrected a lot of the problems we had with plumbing. We had septic issues, we had drainage issues, we had water in the basement, lots of water in the basement.”
By reconfiguring the layout of the interior, there will now be more office and sleeping space, he said.
“We had a lot of square footage issues. We have a lot of square footage here, but it was improperly used,” said Arnold. “We had a dance floor that we don’t use, we had an industrial kitchen we didn’t use, we had a bar we did not use. We had a room with a pool table in it that we didn’t use. There was a lot of wasted space.”
There also was inaccessible space on the third-floor attic that will now be used for storage and will allow air conditioning to be installed, something the volunteers have never had there.
“There is capacity for a third floor storage area, but the way it was set up we couldn’t use any of it,” said Arnold. “Due to the renovation, we were able to pull all those things out, correct the plumbing, update the electrical, update the Wi-Fi and internet capabilities and repurpose the square footage.”
The old facility did not have adequate sleeping space for members who are on call nights, he said. There is almost always someone in the building, he said. About 98 percent of the time there are member at the station, and the other two percent of the time there are volunteers on call who will leave there homes to respond to emergencies.”
“We have more than 60 members right now,” said Arnold, including two Sacred Heart University students who are studying for a career in medicine.
“They are able to cover a lot of our midnight shifts sleeping in the building,” said Arnold.
While Easton EMS has a healthy roster of members, recruitment is always ongoing and the renovation will aid that effort, he said.
“With the repurposing and renovation of the building, it just enhances our ability to recruit and retain volunteers,” he said. “We have more bedrooms now, we have more office space, we have more educational teaching space and better living quarters. We have increased the capacity for storage of vehicles.”
The town purchased the lot next to the building to allow for a new septic system that also was outdated.
Arnold said EMS is working with zoning officials and the Health Department to put in a system that matches the capacity of the building and will be more compliant with current regulations
“What we had before was compliant to what the regulations were 60 years ago,” he said. “The regulations have changed so in building this system we are able to be more compliant with current regulations.”
The square footage of the building won’t increase but the interior will be totally different from what it was. By removing the pool table, that space will be repurposed into four bedrooms, he said, and a room that housed bar space will now be offices.
“We removed the bar area and we were able to increase our office space from one office to four offices on the second floor just by repurposing that space,” Arnold said.
As a doctor, the project has special meaning for Bindelglass, who has opted not to run for re-election.
“This is something that is probably a good 20 years overdue, so it was important that it will finally get done,” he said. “So far, we think we’re doing very well with both the budget and the completion date.”
