Members of the Brookings Fire Department turned out in dress uniform and sent the dirt flying Tuesday afternoon for the South Main Fire Station at the corner of Main Avenue South and 26th Street South in Brookings. A sign on Main Avenue South shows an artist’s rendering of how the building will look with Dakota Prairie Elementary just down the street.
Deputy Mayor Keith Corbett said the fire station would be a “gateway project” and “a beautiful fire station for people coming in from the south,” and thanked the firefighters for what they do. “We’re so lucky to have them,” he said.
Officials from the city and county and community tossed dirt between a bulldozer and the 1948 fire truck, which will be housed in the new facility. It will also have four bays for vehicles, and the taller ceilings will allow for in-house maintenance, said Brookings Fire Chief Darrell Hartmann.
But most important to all the city officials is that the location will improve the firefighters’ response time, especially to south Brookings.
“Average in-town response time is four minutes, 38 seconds,” Hartmann said, adding the county-wide response time is 6 minutes, 2 seconds. “I’m proud of our personnel. They may be volunteers, but they’re top-notch.”
City Manager Jeff Weldon said the South Main Fire Station is scheduled to be completed in November. It will cost $1.5 million, which will come out of the 25 percent second-penny sales tax money. The new facility will be built on the east part of the land, leaving room for future expansion, he added.
Weldon pointed to Dakota Prairie Elementary, which is the station’s next-door neighbor, and the Prairie Hills Addition kitty-corner across the intersection, as evidence of Brookings’ growth to the east, south and west, and a bit to the north in that area.
“Best possible location,” Weldon said. “We looked very carefully at where we site fire stations with growth and development of the school down here.”
The South Main Fire Station will give Brookings four fire stations, according to Weldon. The other three are on Sixth Street, 22nd Avenue, and Third Avenue. The one on 32nd Street South will be decommissioned and will be used only as an indoor training facility, Hartmann said, leaving the South Main Fire Station as the southern-most station in the city.
