Plans to build a multi-million-dollar fire station on the booming Interquest corridor inched closer to reality.

The Planning Commission approved a request from the Colorado Springs Fire Department to rezone just under 5 acres of land at the intersection of New Life Drive and Interquest Parkway to build its Fire Station 24, for which the department began planning in 2021.

The new station planned east of Pikes Peak State College’s Rampart Range campus will provide service to a growing sector of town that currently sees about 700 to 750 calls for service a year, the department’s Deputy Chief of Support Services Steve Dubay told the board. Call volumes are expected to increase as development continues in the area, he said.

The agency proposes building a one-story, approximately 12,000-square-foot facility that will include a kitchen, restrooms and resting areas for four firefighters. The station will also include a bay area that will store one fire engine and one brush truck, Dubay said. The property has enough space to add an approximately 3,000-square-foot office if the department determines it is needed in the future, he said.

The Fire Department could spend between $7 million and $10 million to build the new station, Dubay said in an interview after the meeting. The agency has already purchased the land from Springs-based developer La Plata Communities for about $550,000, as well as a new fire truck for the station at a price tag of about $650,000.

When fire officials first presented to the Colorado Springs City Council its plans to build Station 24 in late 2021, they estimated the total cost for the station and its equipment would run between $7.5 million to $8.5 million, excluding the cost of the land. The cost estimate for the facility has gone up in the years since due to inflation, Dubay said Wednesday.

The station is funded by Fire Department capital funds.

Residents living near Powers Boulevard and Old Ranch Road, about three miles southeast of the planned fire station, have in recent months opposed new planned subdivisions in that area over evacuation and fire concerns.

In July, the City Council denied controversial plans to build Kettle Creek North, about 250 homes on approximately 61 acres east of Powers Boulevard and north of Thunder Mountain Avenue. The board sided with residents who said the development could impede evacuations in the event of an emergency such as a wildfire.

In late February, however, the council approved a request to build 290 homes in the new Ovation subdivision on 60 acres of land south of the previously denied Kettle Creek North neighborhood, on the west-southwest side of Powers just north of Old Ranch Road.

Councilmembers who supported the Ovation request said there were “distinct differences” between the two developments, such as more commercial and residential development in the immediate area around Ovation.

Once Station 24 is built, the subdivision will be within the Fire Department’s goal response times of between 8 and 12 minutes.

The agency on Dec. 18 opened Station 25, its latest, in the southeast part of the city at the corner of Horizon View Drive and Bradley Street.