Station upgrade

In the old building, 10-foot-by-10-foot doors make even the task of pulling a truck in and out a challenge. And inside, the trucks fit with just a few inches of space to spare.
It also lacks drains in the floor and space to hang hoses to dry after runs. As a result, firefighters would drain hoses in the street, resulting in an icy mess in the winter, and then return to the station hours later to roll them back up.
The new station will eliminate those problems. Its doors are 2 feet wider and 4 feet taller than its predecessor. The floors have drains. And the firefighters plan to add drying racks along the walls.
There is also space to pull trucks out of the station and park them in front. The old fire station offers no such space as the building abuts the sidewalk.
In addition to five larger truck bays, up from the current four, there is a 16-by-40-foot "day room" that will serve as a meeting space and training area for firefighters, a storage room, men’s and women’s restrooms and a chief’s office. Currently, meetings are held in truck bays and the chief’s office doubles as storage space.
"It gives us more room," said Charles "Red" Coons, who serves on Redkey Town Council and has been a volunteer firefighter in the town for 52 years. "Everything is going to be situated better, the radio room and the day room where we hold our meetings won’t have to be in the bay area. … I really think it’s going to be a lot better for Redkey."
The new building will also provide consistent heat, which will help especially during the winter months when trucks and hoses can come back covered in snow or ice.
Heat and air conditioning can be controlled individually for each room and above each truck. American Electric Power estimates better insulation, doors and heaters will result in a facility that is 50 to 75 percent more energy efficient.
"It wasn’t very efficient," Young said of the 1905 station. "You turned up the heat higher and it would just go out around the windows and doors."
The construction process on the new facility, which is nearly complete with only gutters to be added, began with volunteers demolishing the former town hall in May. But the work toward the project was a much longer process.
The town had applied unsuccessfully to Indiana’s Office of Community and Rural Affairs for funding  four times, and had discussed fundraising efforts long before that. Then the dream of a new fire station finally came together in September 2015, when OCRA awarded a $400,000 grant for the project.
“When … Jay County community developer Ami Huffman ... sent me a text message that we were approved for the grant, I thought she was joking,” Young said in December. “You just can’t believe the feeling that all of us had.”
That left $59,000 in construction costs to be paid for by the town along with $38,000 architect/design fees.
The project was bare bones in order to keep costs down, with the fire department’s volunteers planning to raise funds and add features as they can afford them. In addition to drying racks for hoses, those include an air compressor, storage cabinets, additional water lines, a desk for the radio area and shelving in the storage room.
Young noted a good relationship with contractors, saying Mid-States Concrete and General Construction and Hatzell Brothers teamed to give the new station its two-color gray and red look at no extra cost as opposed to the single color that was in the original design.
"It went great. It couldn’t have (gone) better," said Huffman. "The crew was great to work with. …
"It seems like in the end everybody was really happy with what they got."
"I’m grateful for the funding. I’m grateful that the volunteer firemen have a great spot to work out of now," she added of the department that responds to about 200 medical calls and 70 accident/fire calls per year. "They deserve it."
Young plans to hold a public open house and a ribbon-cutting ceremony during the first half of December.