The city of Bellevue is nearing the purchase of property for the proposed Fire Station 10, according to a presentation at Monday’s council meeting.
At the Sept. 12 extended study session, Bellevue Fire Department Fire Chief Mark Risen told the council that the proposed station will be located on an 2.82-acre plot of land near the corner of 112th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 12th Street.
The city is currently in the acquisition process of securing that land.
This location would necessitate the displacement of six owners and nine parcels of land, and for some of them, this fire station shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion.
“We have owned this property for 38 years,” said Richard Edgar, owner of two of the buildings on the site to be bought and demolished. “And in 2005 to 2008, we built a new house on the property for our retirement years. It was the first new construction on the block in 40 years.”
Bellevue’s policy is to pay “fair market value” whenever it purchases private property for public works. Bellevue Fire Department spokesperson Ryan Armstrong said that could vary drastically depending on the properties.
With average home prices in Bellevue at more than $700,000, a rough estimate climbs upwards of $6.3 million, funds already approved by the city for its 2015-21 Capital Investment Program.
Fire Station 10 has been on the books for years, and as Downtown Bellevue’s population (and average building height) continues to soar, a new station is necessary to maintain the extremely high standards the Bellevue Fire Department sets for itself, the department claims.
According to Chief Risen, the new station will allow fire crews to limit travel time to under three minutes for high-rise and under four minutes for non-high-rise incidents almost anywhere in the Downtown, Wilburton and Ashwood neighborhoods of the city. Bellevue Fire Department, one of the top-three fire departments in Washington and in the top 1 percent of the 46,699 rated fire departments in the nation, holds itself to higher-than-required standards.
Armstrong said that because of the increasing percentage of high-rise buildings in Downtown as well as more traffic congestion, what was once within a four-minute travel time of crews at Fire Station 1 (near Bellevue High School) and Fire Station 5 (in Clyde Hill on Northeast 24th Street) isn’t any longer. In 2010, 7,147 people lived in Downtown Bellevue. By 2030, that number is predicted to reach as high as 19,000.
According to the Fire Facilities Master Plan, “there are gaps in meeting the three-minute travel time to incidents in the neighborhoods of Northwest Bellevue, downtown, BelRed and Wilburton.”
The location was chosen because of its close proximity to both Overlake Hospital Medical Center and to Downtown as well as the minimal impact on residents. Several of the units to be acquired are rentals and all are single-family homes.
Risen said that Medic One could move its units across Interstate 405 to Fire Station 10 in 2020 where it could be more effective a unit.
While the city can commence acquiring the properties now (letters went out to affected homeowners just last week), nothing else can happen unless Bellevue residents approve a ballot measure in November. The Fire Facilities ballot measure, if approved by voters, would give Bellevue the money needed to design and construct Fire Station 10.
Nora Johnson, Bellevue’s Civic Services director, said that even if the ballot measure were approved, the design process wouldn’t start until late 2018 and construction not until 2019 at the earliest.
“They can expect a couple years they can stay in their homes,” she said of the impacted residents.
The fire facilities measure would increase property tax by 12.5 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value — an average of $80 annually per home. It would also provide money for retrofitting stations around the city for seismic activity, warehouse space for reserve equipment and other upgrades to existing stations.
Adjacent McCormick Park will not be impacted by the plan for Fire Station 10, Armstrong said.
Armstrong said contact with neighbors is already underway.
“As far as community outreach, we went out door-to-door to businesses and single-family-homes,” he said. “We want to get the community involved in this project.”
The last new fire station, Fire Station 8, was added in the Lakemont neighborhood in 1995. Bellevue Fire Department began as a rural fire agency in 1965.
