As Harvard’s fire chief continues to grapple with how to make progress toward replacing the town’s 47-year-old fire station, a visit to the Nov. 7 Select Board meeting offered little direction. While the board recognized the need for a new station, it reminded Fire Chief Rick Sicard and Permanent Building Committee Chair Pablo Carbonell that the station design is not on the capital plan until fiscal 2026. With no funding currently available, Select Board Chair Rich Maiore asked what the committee was trying to accomplish.
Carbonell explained that his committee is looking at the project now because it could require land acquisition. If the current parcel is not suitable for a new station, Carbonell said, the town might need to buy land before voting on building or even designing a new station. Maiore noted that this created a “chicken and egg” problem, possibly leaving the town with a piece of land and an unfunded fire station project. And, he said, “I don’t know what kind of appetite the town would have to buy land and sit on it for a few years.” Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro said, ideally, funding a land purchase would be done in tandem with funding the building.
But Carbonell said it’s important to take a closer look at the design of the fire station project now to get “everybody’s mind in the right direction.” Part of the issue, he said, is that the design for renovating the Department of Public Works buildings is currently underway, and funding for that large project is scheduled to be on the warrant at Annual Town Meeting in the spring. “People are not going to be happy to be swallowing these two pills a couple years apart, and nobody really thinks about a fire department or a DPW until their house is burning, or the roads need to be plowed,” he said. Sobalvarro said the two projects need to be staggered, and the fire station project is not the one currently in front of the town. “Everyone will get their turn,” she said. “It’s just not the Fire Department’s turn right now.”
Select Board member Don Ludwig said the existing site, next to Town Hall, should be ruled out before considering other sites. Carbonell said there is enough land at the existing site, especially now that building senior housing on the adjacent Hildreth House parcel did not receive town support a few years ago. But, he added, the Hildreth parcel would need substantial blasting, raising construction costs there. He also said the department would need another location for its operations during construction on the existing site, and the only site in town he knew of that could serve as a possible temporary station is the old two-bay fire station in Still River.
Also complicating the land issue is the unanswered question of whether the fire and ambulance services should merge. Part of that merger would involve a new building to serve both departments, and that would increase the square footage needs. Select Board member Kara Minar said the merger needs to be discussed since it will play a part in the land requirements for a new station.
Carbonell said the committee could meet with the Fire Department to estimate blasting costs, temporary facility costs, and land acquisition costs for the parcels that are currently available. A feasibility study done by Kaestle Boos in 2020 contains some of that information, as well as sketches of a new station on the existing parcel and a parcel on Ayer Road, which is still for sale. The committee met the following morning, and although it did not have a quorum, Carbonell and Sicard agreed to put together a document with the relevant information over the next week. The Permanent Building Committee is scheduled to meet again Nov. 15 to discuss a future presentation to the Select Board.
