By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Next station features Del Webb look
Work starts on 4th fire station next month
Manteca-Fire-Station---Lathrop-Road1
A rendering of what Mantecas fourth fire station will look like when it is completed in the fall of 2014. - photo by Rendering courtesy of the City of Manteca

Looks can be deceiving.

And that’s just fine by Manteca Fire Chief Kirk Waters.

Manteca’s next fire station - due to open in the fall of 2014 - doesn’t look like your typical fire station. It is designed to blend seamlessly into the surrounding Del Webb at Woodbridge neighborhood that is being built.

“That’s exactly what we want,” Waters said.

The Manteca City Council Tuesday approved a $3.2 million design build agreement with Diede Construction for the 7,173-square-foot structure designed by LDA Partners of Stockton.

The architecture mirrors that off the Del Webb community. The fire station planned for the northeast corner of the future intersection of Madison Grove at Lathrop Road just west of Raley’s will employ cement plaster and stone veneer for the exterior walls and use warm earth tones. The elevations will also include aluminum windows and a tile roof.

It is part of a two-pronged plan the Manteca City Council implemented in June to bolster public safety by tapping an $8 million endowment fund set up using developer fees. The fund paid for the restoration of a four officer gang unit in July. It also is fronting $1.3 million in the form of a no-interest loan to help cover the construction costs plus $165,000 a year to help cover additional staffing along with utilities and upkeep.

That funding - along with the shifting of manpower from the 100-foot aerial platform engines that is one of two engine housed at the main station on Union Road will allow the new station to open without impacting the stressed general fund.

Although Waters has emphasized it won’t be the ideal situation, under current funding plans the station will have the required three-man staffing for a fire engine 50 percent of the time. The other half the station will have the two-man rescue squad assigned to it.

Since 3,859 medical emergencies represent the bulk of the 5,443 calls that Manteca Fire handled last year that would be a fairly effective deployment of resources. Currently the additional personnel are at the Union Road Station where two engines are manned most of the time. There were only 241 actual fires in 2011.

Usually the city has to spend in excess of $500,000 on a front-line engine to open a new station. Manteca will be able to shift either the engine at Union Road or the fire squad to the new station depending upon staffing.

The station opening will bring 3,000 homes in northwest Manteca within the targeted five-minute response time. There were over 500 emergency calls during 2011 in the area that firefighters arrived at outside the five-minute target.

The city is currently negotiating the sale of the old Carpenter’s Hall at Union Road and Louise Avenue they bought a few years back for possible conversion to a fire station. With the proceeds from that sale plus what fire facility fees have been collected from growth there would be a $1.3 million shortfall of the $3.579 million needed to build the station.

The $1.3 million would be paid back to the endowment fund as the city collects fire facility fees from future growth.

Councilman Steve DeBrum expressed hope that by moving the fourth station along it will next focus attention on the fifth station planned to serve southeast Manteca at Woodward Avenue and Moffat Boulevard.

The city already has a site at that location phonated by Atherton Homes. The site of the fourth station expected to see site work start next month was donated to the city by Pulte Homes, the developers of Del Webb at Woodbridge.