FORT SMITH -- Work is scheduled to begin Sept. 1 on construction of a larger ambulance station in Greenwood to keep pace with Sebastian County's growing Emergency Medical Services operation.
County Judge David Hudson of Sebastian County announced last week Petree Construction of Fort Smith was awarded the contract with a bid of $1.74 million to build the 8,000-square-foot station that will allow the service to comfortably house all of its equipment, including four ambulances, for the first time.
"The facilities need to be laid out and organized in a fashion to support quick response to 911 calls and the ability to provide those life-saving services, then be able to quickly restock, clean up and decontaminate and get ready to respond to the next emergency," Hudson said.
Petree Construction will have 300 days to finish building the new station, located next door to the current station at 200 S. Coker St. Hudson said he expects the station to be completed in July and opened next August.
Providing a new station to serve all of Sebastian County outside Fort Smith and Barling, which has its own ambulance service, has been in the planning stage for several years. But it wasn't until last year, when voters approved raising the annual $18 ambulance user fee to $68 by 2018, that the conditions were ripe to proceed with building the new station.
Hudson stressed the new ambulance station is being built with money from a county sales tax earmarked for capital improvements. The ambulance user fee is being used for the growing ambulance service.
"All of the user fee revenue is exclusively dedicated to operations," Hudson said. "So none of that money is used for this facility, and the election was not a basis for expansion of the new facility."
The new station will be a big improvement over the current building, which started as a senior citizen center before being converted into a two-bay emergency medical services station built for one ambulance crew. The county now has two crews and has outgrown the current station.
The new station will be equipped with six bedrooms as well as a decontamination room, laundry and equipment restocking area that are close to the ambulance bays. Paramedics won't have to track through the living spaces to get to showers and laundries as they do now, said Jeffrey Turner, the co-administrator for public safety.
A tornado shelter also is being built in the station, Hudson said.
The size of the garages in the current station are inadequate for the emergency medical services' needs, Turner said.
"The bays we have now are too small for the trucks we have, but we have to have the trucks for the equipment we carry," he said.
Hudson said it's a tight fit to back the large ambulances into the bays. Turner said the door can't open all the way because it will touch the ambulance in the next bay.
The new station will have three drive-thru bays that can hold up to six vehicles. Now, the county has to keep some of its vehicles outside or at a different location.
The old station won't go to waste after the new station is built. Hudson said he would like to continue to use the training room in the station that is now used by the county's road department, rural fire and emergency medical services.
He said what happens to the rest of the building will have to be evaluated.
NW News on 08/21/2017