Holland Construction Services finishes O’Fallon firehouse

Year in Review 2013: Southwestern Illinois

Holland Construction Services finishes O’Fallon firehouse

    Holland Construction Services recently finished one fire house and just broke ground on another as investment in the region’s public safety facilities starts to heat up.
    Work on the Fairview Heights Engine House No. 2 started last April near the corner of Ashland Avenue and  Frey Avenue, between Illinois Route 159 and Old Collinsville Road. The new facility, which was completed at the end of October, replaces the engine house that was located at 626 Lincoln Highway. The old fire house had accessibility and parking issues and lacked a sprinkler system.
    The new facility is a 14,000-square-foot, four-bay fire house. It has a meeting/training room, office space for the fire chief and the assistant chief, a plan review room, a fitness room and a kitchen/day room area. It has capacity for future bunk rooms. It will hold two pumper trucks, one ladder truck and one rescue squad and will provide protection for the east end of the fire district.
    An additional feature to the new building is a training tower. This will be used for firefighter training on ladders, removing a victim from a window, hose line advancement and firefighter rescue.
    The Fairview Heights Fire Department moved in right before Thanksgiving. The old building will be put up for sale.
    Holland also recently broke ground on a fire house/emergency services building for the city of O’Fallon, Ill. This is a new station being built in anticipation of growth on the west end of the city. The 16,500-square-foot fire house/EMS building will have four bays and seven bunk rooms. Holland is also constructing a 6,500-square-foot maintenance building on the site for the O’Fallon Parks Department. The total construction cost for both buildings is $5.8 million and should be completed in late September or early October 2014.
    Fred Dintelman is a senior project manager for Holland and project manager for both of these projects. He said that there are a number of unusual aspects to emergency buildings.
     “These types of buildings are unique in terms of their communications systems, alert systems, 911 systems and paging systems,” Dintelman said.
    Another unusual feature of these buildings has come to the fore after the devastating tornado in Joplin, Mo. That disaster revealed the importance of having emergency service buildings able to withstand severe storms so that the emergency personnel are able to respond in a crisis. The Fairview Heights station, for example, was designed to withstand an EF4 tornado.