Efforts to improve public safety moved one step closer to reality last week as ground broke on Monument Fire District’s newest station.

Firefighters came together with community members, project team members, local elected officials and other stakeholders to break ground March 25 on Fire Station 3.

The new 17,000-square-foot facility will replace the current Station 3 located at 1855 Woodmoor Drive, north of Second Street. The former facility, built in the 1960s, is aging and inadequate for the fire district’s current and future needs, Monument Fire District Chief Andy Kovacs said.

The relocated Station 3 will be built along Jackson Creek Parkway, just east of Interstate 25 and near Lewis-Palmer High School and the Tri-Lakes YMCA.

“Stations 1 and 3 previously overlapped in coverage, so (this relocation) … was a much-needed improvement for the community and for our fire crews,” Division Chief Jamey Bumgarner said in a March 26 news release from Flintco, a commercial construction management firm and general contractor who is developing the station.

The new two-story facility will feature a four-bay pull-through apparatus bay, making emergency response more efficient. It will include 10 bedrooms and bathrooms, and an upgraded kitchen, dining room, dayroom, gymnasium and administrative offices to better serve crews, Kovacs said.

A battalion chief, a ladder truck crew of three or four personnel, and a squad unit of two firefighters will staff the station, but it will be big enough that the district can add more firefighters if needed.

Perhaps “most exciting,” Kovacs added, is the decontamination corridor planned for the station, which will allow firefighters to disrobe from their firefighting gear and shower before they ever enter the living space. This prevents cancer-causing agents that can settle onto them and their gear during a fire from contaminating the station’s residential quarters.

The fire district is in the process of selling the property where the current Fire Station 3 is located to Woodmoor Water & Sanitation, who own the property behind it. Monument Fire District will then rent the space for the duration of construction on the new facility, Kovacs said.

The relocated Fire Station 3 will allow the fire district to respond to a growing community. The number of residents who live along the I-25 and Jackson Creek Parkway corridor will only get larger, he said. Kovacs pointed to new construction and residential growth over the last three years on the west side of I-25, near Old Denver Road.

“We’ve had about a 10% increase in call volume over each of the last three years, so 30% in total. The district is really trying to keep up with the demand and we know that pretty much any (land) that doesn’t have anything built on it (eventually) will,” Kovacs said.

The fire district is in the process of purchasing two acres of land on this side of I-25, at Baptist Road and Terrazzo Drive, to build Fire Station 6, he said.

The $18 million Station 3 project is funded through a voter-approved mill levy. Construction is expected to be completed in about a year.

Key partners include Flinco, OZ Architecture and NV5, who is the owner’s representative.