By: Abigail Twiford, Follow South Jersey Intern
WILLIAMSTOWN, N.J. — Driving or walking down Main Street in Williamstown, residents may have noticed that the firehouse, which had been standing there since 1975, had been demolished. On the lot, all that was left were a fence and construction materials.
Williamstown Fire Company is getting a completely rebuilt and updated firehouse, which will be located on the same Main Street lot as the one before, though the new one will be larger and will take up some of the previously unoccupied space that sat behind the old station.
The architectural designs for the new space have already been looked over and revised by the company’s in-house build committee, which made sure everything with the design, as far as room sizing and layout, were correct. The designs were then approved by the town council and the project is now up for bid.
Andrew Disque is president of Cecil Fire Department’s volunteer association. Cecil Fire Department is affiliated with the Williamstown Fire Company, as it services the Southern portion of the town. That station, located on 322, was itself renovated a few years ago.
“The biggest difference is it’s going to be more modern and more updated,” said Disque.
These differences include better Wi-Fi transmission, larger engine bays so trucks can move in and out more freely, more bunk rooms for men and women, a full exercise room, a meeting, a training room, and additional office space for the Fire Prevention Office, which is currently located in the township building.
“One of the bigger features that we’re looking forward to is we also have a training tower that we’re building on the back of the building, so that will be helpful for drill and obviously training purposes,” said Disque.
The new building will sit on the exact footprint of the old, though due to the increased size, the back part will be on a second lot, which the township has already purchased in anticipation of the project.
This secondary lot and extra space will allow the fire company to more easily perform maintenance on the trucks and wash them.
The decision to rebuild instead of renovating the existing building was made after a cost benefit analysis done by Monroe Township concluded that, with the amount of work and updates needed to modernize the station, it would ultimately be less expensive to rebuild entirely.
The total cost of the project is $7.3 million for the entirety of the project.
Greg Wolfe is the mayor of Williamstown and was involved with the town council’s approvals.
Wolfe says that taxpayers may see a slight increase in taxes due, though it will not be as much of an increase as renovations or a paid department.
“Not only in our town, but throughout the nation, volunteerism is down, and we’re fortunate enough to have these volunteers because that saves our taxpayers millions of dollars per year by having volunteers. If we had to go to a paid fire department like Washington Township or other ones, we would have to come up with a fire tax, which would cost taxpayers millions of dollars per year in salaries, benefits, all that. So we see that, we recognize it. But if we’re going to invest money in a building like this, we’re going to do it the right way, to set it up for the future,” said Wolfe.
The new station is also being made so that, if a paid fire service is at any point in the future made necessary by low rates of volunteers, the building will be able to accommodate that.
The project is expected to be finished in fall of 2025.
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