An article in today’s Republican reports that the Springfield Department of Parks, Buildings and Recreation Management has submitted to city officials a capital improvements plan for firehouse and library upgrades. Promising news, but rather perplexing as well for those of us invested in what happens to the city’s fire stations. From the article:
[Parks and Rec director Patrick] Sullivan said his department included the Sixteen Acres and Oakland Street [fire] stations in its improvement manual to have a solid plan in place in case relocation of the two facilities does not come to fruition.
Carroll Buracker & Associates of Harrisonburg, Va., which conducted a study of the fire department last year, recommended the city consolidate the two stations into a single, state-of-the-art station centrally located between the two current sites.
The October 2005 Buracker study (PDF) actually recommended the consolidation of the Oakland Street (#3) and Sumner Avenue (#14) stations, "into one state-of-the-art fire station centrally located between their current locations." The "Sixteen Acres station," presumably a reference to the one on Parker Street (#12), did not receive any special recommendations in the study, beyond survey, repairs and upgrades for all the stations.
So is this a reporting error, or is the parks and rec department inventing new recommendations?
