When asked to sum up 2019 the first thing that came to Select Board Chair Doug Lucente's mind was construction. Numerous high-profile projects either started or escalated in town last year. Perhaps the hardest to miss is the Fire Department Headquarters being built at 45 Bedford St. As 2020 begins, construction has ramped back up. Fire Chief Derek Sencabaugh now estimates that it will be finished by April.
By the end of this week, the roof is scheduled to be completed. Masonry work has been finished on the exterior as well, giving residents a first look at the final product. Now, workers will mainly turn their focus indoors, Sencabaugh said. Windows are being installed, and mechanical and electrical work inside will be a major focus going forward.
Winter has not made much of an impact on the process, Sencabaigh said. Although there have been a few major storms, construction crews are still well on pace, he added.
The new building will be about twice as large as the old station, which was located on the same site. The old station, Sencabaugh said, was built in the 1940s and had outlived its prime.
"The other one was more than 70 years old, I'm hoping that this one here will outlast my career. You're basically hoping that you're building a fire station for the next 75 to 100 years," he said.
When construction is complete, Lexington firefighters will have access to a bevy of new tools ensuring they are better equipped than ever before.
The rear of the building will house a three-story training tower, Sencabaugh said. It is being designed to provide full scale practice for firefighters. Using the windows on the tower, they will be able to train with full ladders and learn how to bail out of structures before rappelling down walls.
A mezzanine adjacent to the garage will be filled with other training props, such as sledge hammers and axes to simulate forcibly opening doors in a real emergency. There will also be movable walls, allows instructors to customize the scenarios that the trainees are put in.
"It's really going to benefit the firefighters to be able to do very realistic, hands-on training," Sencabaugh said.
A state-of-the-art training room will be built into the station's first floor, Sencabaugh said. Previously, the fire department's training room was always shared with another space, requiring furniture rearrangement just to make the space fit everyon. Now, this dedicated training room will be able to fit 35 people, he said.
The new headquarters will better protect firefighters from the dangerous chemicals they might be exposed to in an actual blaze, Sencabaugh said. The first floor will house a complete decontamination room, where they can go immediately after returning to the building. It will have special showers and area to wash gear. This way, soot from fires won't be brought into the station proper, because that soot could contain harmful carcinogens, he said. Gear will also be stored in a special room, with a separate ventilation system, to keep toxins out of the air.
While construction goes on, the fire department is temporarily headquartered at 173 Bedford St.
The new building will make Lexinton's first responders safer and better equipped to handle any situation. For Sencabaugh, who toured the site early this week, enthusiasm is starting to build.
"From the outside, the building has really taken on its own character and you can see what it's going to look like, which is very exciting," he said.
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