New LPFD headquarters, fire station to open in May New LPFD headquarters, fire station to open in May (March 15, 2002)

$7.5 million facility to serve Livermore, Pleasanton
by Jeb Bing

The Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department will open its new $7.5 million headquarters building and adjoining Fire Station No. 1 at Bernal Avenue and Del Valle Parkway in late May, it was announced this week.

A tour of the two-story building showed both facilities nearing completion, with interior walls, finished flooring and fixtures yet to be installed. The cavernous apparatus room with its three 14-feet-high doors on both sides of the station is capable of handling either of the department's aerial ladder trucks. Because of its central location to both cities, it will also house the department's specialty equipment and services that can be dispatched quickly in major emergencies.

"We'll move trucks into this new station and have them ready to roll as soon as the traffic signal is installed at Bernal and Vineyard Avenue," said Fire Chief Stewart Gary. "Using rooftop-mounted sensors, the fire trucks can turn the new signal green for southbound Bernal traffic to quickly clear the bridge of any traffic."

Work on the 20,682-square-foot combined headquarters building and fire station started in January 2001. Livermore and Pleasanton, which combined their fire departments five years ago, are contributing about $2 million each to the cost of the headquarters, with Pleasanton paying another $3,635,740 for its fire station. The site, which backs onto the Arroyo del Valle at the Bernal Avenue bridge, was acquired by Pleasanton years ago as a fire station site.

Gary said that although the project is a single building, the headquarters and Fire Station 1 will operate independently. When fully operational, the headquarters operation will have from 23 to 28 employees, including Gary and his administrative team, fire inspectors, clerical support, plan checkers and specialty inspection services. They will work weekdays, while a minimum of a three-person firefighting crew will be in the adjoining station 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"When we began planning a new headquarters, it made sense to construct a single building that would combine those needs with the new Fire Station 1 that we were already planing to build," Gary said. "With a single building and combined utilities and parking, we were able to save considerably over the cost of two separate facilities."

Fire Station 1 now operates out of one of the city's older firehouses on Railroad Avenue along with crews attached to Fire Station 4, which will be relocated to another new fire station on Bernal across from the Fairgrounds next year. When vacated, the old fire station is being considered for use as an art gallery and black box theater.

Gary said the new headquarters building will be equipped with the latest communications technologies, including fiber optic lines that eventually will link together all emergency operations and city halls in the Tri-Valley. A large meeting room on the second floor will contain all computer and communications software needed to manage emergency responses to any kind of disaster.

Those living in Vintage Hills and Kottinger Ranch and other nearby neighborhoods also will benefit by faster response time from the new station. Together with a fire station near Ruby Hill and another on Concannon Boulevard in Livermore, the fire department will have some of the fastest response capabilities anywhere in the two cities for both fire and paramedic services.

The new headquarters will be dedicated in August to the volunteer fire departments that started protecting Livermore and Pleasanton more than 125 years ago. Brass bells from the former independent fire departments in each city will be hung side by side in front of the headquarters, with a display room open to the public that will contain fire department and equipment dating back more than 100 years.