The nearly 50-year-old building that houses a downtown-adjacent Columbia Fire Station has been crumbling for years. The station at 1015 Ferguson St., between Assembly Avenue and the Olympia neighborhood, was built as a floral warehouse in the 1970s and converted into a fire station in the 1990s.
After years of talking about renovations, the station is finally being replaced. The city of Columbia is looking to spend approximately $12 million to build a new station, as the area in and around Olympia swells with new student rentals and other construction. At least some of that cost will be paid by federal Community Development Block Grant dollars.
“The current station is a real mess,” said Viola Hendley, a community leader in the Olympia neighborhood and a longtime advocate for replacing the station, which she said leaks and floods during heavy rain.
Are more trucks needed?
Beyond the station’s poor conditions are concerns that the single fire truck the station houses doesn’t provide the man power some say the area needs as student housing has swelled in and around Olympia over the last decade…