Ellendale’s new fire hall nears completion

This spring, expect a stronger-than-usual breeze from the southwest – specifically, from Ellendale.

It will be the collective sigh of relief when all of the work is complete on the city’s new fire hall, more than 30 years in the making.

“The oldest blueprints I have are from ’94,” said Fire Chief Logan Busho. “Steve and I have been working on (the current plan) for eight years, so it’s been a process. I’m ready for it to be done.”

He’s talking about Steve Engel, city clerk/treasurer – and former mayor of the town – who’s been on the front line of the planning and financing pieces of the project.

Evolving plans

The work on the latest iteration of a fire hall began in 2017 with a call to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has resources for rural fire departments.

“We were actually looking at (spending) $250,000,” Engel said, and the USDA suggested city officials travel to Nerstrand, which had just built a new fire hall.

Before much else was accomplished, “things changed,” he said, “and prices started going up.”

Still, the USDA offered loans of up to $450,000, which would mean the city wouldn’t have to bond for the cost. Engel knew the city couldn’t come up with enough money through property taxes alone.

Prices continued to climb as Engel and Busho sent the required paperwork to the USDA.

“It was ungodly,” Engel said. “I sent them 38 different documents – just to qualify to ask for the money – and we still weren’t approved.”

All options for the building were discussed, including stick-built, steel and prestressed concrete.

The deciding factors, Engel said, were cost, longevity and fire-prevention.

The new hall would sit on city-owned property immediately east of the existing fire hall.

Other lots in town were available for EFD to use, Busho said, “but then we would lose having the old building right next door.”

With the decisions made, it was time to build.

Dollar signs

Construction on the building began last summer, and will be completed this spring.

The new Ellendale fire hall is steel, has a life span of 80 years and cost just a hair over $900,000.

As Engel and Busho worked on providing the required documents to the USDA, the project’s price tag quickly passed the $450,000 mark, forcing the city to bond for the financing.

During COVID, “there was one month where the price of materials jumped $70,000,” Busho said.

When considering a building of prestressed concrete, “we hit a million (dollars), figuring on paper, within 10 minutes, and that was back in 2018,” Engel said.

The most difficult part of the process for Busho, a third-generation firefighter, was figuring out the funding.

“When we started, we looked at trying to get grants,” Busho said, but grants were only considered for cities with a median income of $20,000 or less.

The fire department, through its charitable gambling association, “donated quite a chunk of it,” and the city’s prior budgeting has provided another $90,000 toward the cost.

The Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association and the Minnesota State Fire Department Association says the state ranks 48^th in statewide funding for departments.

Bonding it was, with payments of $65,000 annually for 20 years.

“We borrowed $760,000, plus insurance,” Engel said. The add-ons and contingencies have tacked on another $100,000.

Still, there have been savings, including not connecting the old fire hall, built in 1974, with the new structure.

Though they sit just a few feet apart, connecting the buildings would have required installing new sprinkler and carbon monoxide systems in the old hall – at a cost of $150,000, Busho said.

The details

Ellendale’s new fire hall stands out in a block of tan and white buildings, with its dark red exterior and angled roofline.

The four-bay, 5,300-square-foot building has a meeting room, office and two bathrooms on the main floor. Plug-ins drop from the two-story ceiling for the trucks, “and as soon as we start the truck, they pop out and retract,” said Josh Otto, who has been with the EFD for 11 years.

 A set of stairs lead up to an open loft space that houses the HVAC system – with plenty of room for storage and potential additional meeting space.

Otto was not on the fire hall building committee, but said its members frequently brought proposals to the rest of the department.

“Most of the guys were just excited to get one going,” he said. “It took so long; and it was like, ‘wow, we actually might be getting a new hall.’ ”

The interior allows for power washing equipment without worrying about moisture buildup and mold; the current fire hall has block walls – and a moisture problem.

“We probably have a couple months’ worth of work on our own stuff, once we get in there,” Busho said, including setting up the offices. The new lockers won’t arrive until April.

“There’s many times we figured this day would never come, you know? So if it takes a little longer, that’s fine,” he said.

The general contractor, APX Construction Group, “won’t sign it over until their punch list is complete,” Busho said. “Once we take it over, then any damage inside is on us.”

The Mankato-based contractor will be back in the coming weeks to fix some exterior things, then will do the asphalt approaches into the building after the frost is out and the ground has settled.

The firefighters themselves have also been working.

“They let us come in already,” Busho said of the new hall. “We ran all the internet cable and saved about $3,000 doing it ourselves; there’s a company that’s donating all the desks and stuff for the offices,” a savings of another $12,000.

It all adds up.

“The guys on our department are pretty well versed in lots of different areas,” he said. “We have everything from a pipeline guy to a farmer, to, at one point, we had a helicopter mechanic …  all different walks of life.”

The future

The new building offers the department room to grow, said Busho, who hopes to have most of the city’s emergency response equipment in the same area.

The fire department’s ladder truck sits in the city garage, as does the city’s ambulance; a tanker sits outside.

Busho hopes to get a second grass rig up and running, because “field fires, grass fires, all that, are a large percentage of our calls.”

Still, it’s unclear exactly what will go in the old fire hall once the new facility is filled.

The three-stall building is city-owned, meaning members of the city council will make those decisions.

Mayor Scott Groth is also breathing a sigh of relief.

“It was a long time coming,” he said. “Like any building (project), there were a few issues, but I think it came together pretty well – and I think it’s well-deserved.”

Busho said an open house will be held sometime this summer.

Otto said the fire hall “feels like a gymnasium – the high ceiling, the light, all the room. It’ll be really neat to see when the trucks are in here.

“I can’t wait.”