Greenwood Village, CO – Adolfson & Peterson Construction (AP) and members of the local community proudly celebrated the completion of the new South Metro Fire Rescue Station 31 recently at a grand opening open house. The celebration was an educational experience for children and families to tour the facility and learn about the operations of the fire fighters and staff. The public grand opening was held a few weeks after the fire fighters and staff celebrated the first ambulance and fire truck moving into the station.
This new 12,740-sf fire station was built after demolishing their outdated structure and was completed in 11 months. Features of the new facility include seven bedrooms; a state-of-the-art workout facility, kitchen and day-room to accommodate a six-person shift; five bathrooms; two offices and a patio with direct access to the kitchen and day-room. The bedrooms are a great improvement to the quality of living for the staff, as the former facility only had curtain separations between sleeping areas. Honoring the history of fire houses, the facility has a firefighter’s pole from the second story to the apparatus bay.
The OZ Architecture design is harmonized with the surrounding residential neighborhoods. The truck bay was designed around the inclusion of a water rescue dive boat – an nontraditional item for Colorado. The station uses the vessel for emergency responses at the nearby Cherry Creek Reservoir with a team trained to perform swiftwater, ice and deep water rescue recovery operations.
“A fire station must be built with a vision for the future. A vision for providing safety for many, many decades to a changing, growing, and thriving community,” said Fire Chief Bob Baker. “I am confident this fire station will serve our firefighters and community for decades to come.”
Greenwood Village’s Mayor Ron Rakowsky also spoke at the event. “This is a very special building. In our society, you do things every so often that humans can take credit for. This is one of them. Welcome home.” The ceremony concluded with a hose uncoupling tradition. Similar to a ribbon cutting tradition, the Mayor and Chief Baker uncoupled a fire house to dedicate the building.
Photo courtesy of AP
