Crime & Safety

Construction Begins on New Ridgewood Fire Station

After decades of speculation and wrangling, the project will eliminate delays for fire trucks and ambulances.

With the blessing of the Village Board and funding almost entirely from grants and development impact fees, ground has been broken for a new fire station at the corner of 55th and Grand Avenue.

The kickoff for the new station began Aug. 17 with an early morning ceremony marked by smiles, shovels, hard hats and enthusiastic speeches.

"For all the things that are criticized sometimes in government, I can say that this is dollars well spent," said a clearly pleased State Rep. Jim Durkin (R-82nd), speaking to about 100 people gathered at the site. "It provides a great resource. It's very important and I'm glad to be part of it."

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The idea of a southern fire station has been in circulation for decades in Western Springs, and gained momentum in recent years as the number of trains passing through the village swelled to over 140 per day. The village has been considering various locations and funding options since at least the 1980s.

Both freight and Metra trains on the BNSF Railway have sometimes delayed emergency personnel from responding to calls in the southern two-thirds of the village, which includes the Springdale, Forest Hills, Ridge Acres, Ridgewood and Timber Trails neighborhoods.

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"People have been actually suffering," said John Norton, 64, a resident north of the tracks and a veteran of the Fire Department, who attended the ceremony. He has long supported a southern fire station.

"Lives have definitely, quote-unquote, been compromised. This will definitely save lives," he said.

With a $1 million federal grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $1 million from the developers of the Timber Trails subdivision and $700,000 in grants from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, the new station comes at no additional cost to Western Springs taxpayers. It is expected to be completed by autumn of 2011.

It will have no permanent staff, but will serve as a depot for Western Springs' paid-on-call fire department to get to equipment and supplies when responding to emergencies. Paid-on-call staff from south of the tracks currently must travel to the Wolf Road station next to Village Hall to respond to a call, and are frequently the last to respond to a crisis in their own neighborhoods.

Village officials considered a number of locations for the new station before settling on the small parcel in the Ridgewood neighborhood. The lot was formerly the site of an office of the now-closed Timber Trails Country Club. Previously zoned as "limited office," the lot has been reclassified under "municipal and government land district," a new classification to which it is currently exclusive.

Municipal Services analyst Matthew Supert stressed that every accommodation was made to fit the station in with Ridgewood's residential feel.

"We've certainly incorporated a lot of [neighborhood] ideas," Supert said. "We went with a metal-stud building, just one story, which gives it more of a house kind of feel."

Not everyone agrees that the station is a good fit. John Wheelihan, 68, who lives across Grand Avenue from the planned station, annoyed some attendees by mowing his lawn throughout the ceremony. Wheelihan denied that his actions were a deliberate protest, but expressed anger with the project, declaring it unfair and unnecessary.

"Would you want that [expletive] thing across from your living room?" Wheelihan asked rhetorically, adding that he was unhappy with the change in zoning. "There's no reason to put a firehouse there—the La Grange [station] is already on the south side of the tracks." (The Pleasantview station of La Grange Highlands is only two blocks from the southern tip of Western Springs.)

But village Fire Chief Tony Bednarz said the new station is needed to bring Western Springs up to standards for response time, and that as close as the Pleasantview station may be, it cannot serve as a primary emergency responder without a special contract, nor is it large enough to serve southern Western Springs along with its own current district.

"The (Pleasantview) taxpayers are supporting their Fire Department," Bednarz said. "If they were to respond to [Western Springs], the residents of Western Springs would have to be [additionally] taxed."

And the project has the blessing of the Ridgewood Civic Association, whose vice president, Barb Lack, 42, attended the ceremony and called the new station "a benefit to the community.

"Anyone in an emergency situation wouldn't grumble about having a fire station right around the corner," Lack said.

Currently, the workers at the site are building the water retention system that will sit underneath the parking lot and protect the site from flooding. Once the system is completed, work will begin on the fire station foundation. The village hopes to have the building enclosed before this winter, and operational by next fall.


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