Downtown fire station makeover nearly complete

Work on the seismic retrofit of the citys main fire station is nearing an end, with crews addressing a few remaining items on their punch list before handing the stations keys back to Napa firefighters.

Over the past few months, crews have worked to upgrade the firehouse to ensure it is seismically sound as well as up to code in a number of other areas. Several small improvements will be made over the next month before it returns to normal service.

Outside, crews recently painted the building and worked on new garage doors. Inside, a number of improvements and renovations are being made.

The project included replacement of the buildings leaky roof, which presented a number of challenges. Under the multiple layers of roofing, crews found moldy insulation and pipes that were not to code. Elsewhere in the building, crews uncovered asbestos.

Whenever youre retrofitting an old building, youre going to encounter the unexpected, Mark Tomko, a senior civil engineer with the city, said of the 1962 structure.

Additionally, the city opted to expand the project scope to take advantage of the fact that the space would be temporarily vacant. In October, the council increased the projects budget by $50,000 to a total of $750,000 to allow for replacement of the garage bay doors, something that was planned to happen in a few years but was moved up to save on installation costs.

City crews have also replaced ceilings and nearly all of the buildings electrical wiring to ensure they meet code, and will be replacing the carpet and tile beneath.

When we started pulling up the carpet, the tiles started coming up, Tomko explained. We found the tiles have asbestos.

Before the end of the year, the city plans to have crews on site to ensure the toxic tiles are properly removed. In January, some windows will be replaced, along with the carpets. Finally, the gas heaters will be installed and the station will be cleaned for the firefighters.

According to the latest project schedule, which was extended a few weeks on account of the additional improvements being made, firefighters should be able to move in at the end of January.

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Downtown fire station makeover nearly complete