A new year, a new fire station?
As contractor bids come in for Station 4, four architects will present their plans for renovating Fire Station 7 in Upper Falls on Jan. 12. The field was narrowed from a dozen applicants who responded to the city’s initial request for qualifications in November.
A report released in 2007 declared all six of Newton’s fire stations in need of urgent renovation, with a total cost between $14 million and $21 million. Station 4 in Newtonville was determined to be the station that could be renovated quickest, with the 20,000-square-foot Station 7 next in line. The city is looking to renovate a station a year.
Station 7 was built in 1955, the same year as stations 3 and 4. Firefighters will need modular housing during its renovation.
The four firms interviewing for the job — Durland-Van Voorhis Architects, the Galante Architecture Studio Inc., Winter Street Architects and Knight Bagge and Anderson — have varying portfolios. New Bedford-based Durland-Van Voorhis has renovated one fire station, a combined fire/police facility in Somerset, while Salem-based Winter Street Architects has worked on fire stations in Ayer, Scituate and Weymouth, and Cambridge-based Galante has designed fire stations in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Charlestown-based Knight Bagge and Anderson has no fire stations in its online portfolio, but has renovated numerous educational buildings. The firm has worked with the city of Newton in the past, most recently last spring to renovate the Brown School’s doors and windows.
