Fire station demolition gets underway

Demolition on Longboat Key’s south fire station officially got underway on Tuesday morning.

The complete demolition process is expected to take about two weeks at the Station 92 building at 2162 Gulf of Mexico Drive, according to Longboat Key Fire Rescue Department spokesperson Tina Adams.

Adams said the reason for the two-week process is so crews can separate materials for recycling.

On Monday, FPL and Comcast removed fiber lines from the station. Crews also began tearing down a wall on the east side of the building, which had stood since the mid-1980s.

Firefighters at the south station have started operating out of a mobile home just north of the old building, which fronts the Longboat Key Club’s Harbourside golf course.

While firefighters use the temporary trailer, Fire Chief Paul Dezzi told the Longboat Observer in May he does not expect to see an increase in the department’s response time to 911 calls.

Longboat Key town projects manager Charlie Mopps said the total cost of the project is $5,058,085. It includes renovations to the town’s north fire station at 5490 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

During the 2018 election, town voters decided by a margin of 65% to 35% to authorize borrowing $5,895,000 for the two projects.

The town’s north station, Station 91, was built in 1996 and will receive some of the same renovations as Station 92, including a back-up generator to provide power to the station, new alarm systems and a new radio system.

Anyone passing by the south station on Gulf of Mexico Drive might see that the Longboat Key Fire Rescue Department will have to park its fire truck and ambulance outside until the new station is built.

The department also has temporary storage units next to the trailers for some of its equipment that cannot fit inside the mobile home.

The new station is scheduled to open in April 2021.