Do you want to give it a few more minutes or do you want to get started? We can go ahead and get started. So this is the public meeting for Miranda Road Firehouse. I want to start off with some introductions. I'm Billy Prutzman. I'm the project manager for this project with the City of Charlotte. Chief Johnson.
Hey, good evening everyone. Fire Chief Reginal Johnson.
Chief Winkles.
Good evening. This is uh deputy chief Jerry Winkle.
Business Admin Chief Ren Blake Ren, Charlotte Fire Department planning division.
Kathleen Cishek, City of Charlotte facilities construction.
And ADW
Hi I'm Ashley Love. I'm principal with ADW Architects and the project manager for this project.
Mike Newton, director of design with ADW Architects.
Alberto Torres, project architect
Lyia Chapman project assistant at ADW.
And just a quick overview of what the project is. Uh the Miranda Firehouse um is a two-story, three-bay firehouse that'll be located at 4032 Miranda Road. Um this location for the firehouse meets the City of Charlotte policy for sustainable facilities and the city um of Charlotte Fire Department facilities master plan. Chief Winkles, I'll turn it over to you for comments from the fire department.
Yes good evening. So uh we're excited about the upcoming Miranda Road fire station um at Beatties Ford Road. One of the things Charlotte Fire Department does is strive to maintain a appropriate distribution of its firehouses throughout the 320 square miles that we serve. Uh this assists us with our uh response criteria uh that we that we strive for um that meet both the that help us meet both the ISO class one rating and also our accreditation so with this addition of this firehouse uh it'll hit an area around Miranda Road and um we look forward to working with the community and look forward to being partners with the community uh in the new firehouse.
Thank you Chief Winkles. Um and now I'll turn it over to ADW and we can go ahead with the presentation.
Thanks Billy. Uh just let everyone know that if you do have a question there is a question and answer chat box that you can that should be pop up at the bottom or the top depending upon which version of Zoom you may have uh that allows you to open up that Q&A box and uh ask a question. So if you have any questions please put them there but we'll go ahead and and share that.
As Billy mentioned this is firehouse for Miranda Road. It is approximately 14,600 square feet. There is a two-story living portion that has day room, dining room, offices and living spaces along with a locker room, three bays for apparatus in the center and then on the other side of the apparatus is a one-story portion for utility spaces and fitness. What we're showing here is a preliminary site plan for the fire station. As you can see it's at the corner of Miranda Road and Beatties Ford Road. The fire station will front Beatties Ford Road. You can see an apparatus bay drive there where the apparatus will exit on to Beatties Ford Road and then an entrance drive for both apparatus and personal vehicles and visitors off of Miranda Road. You can also see in the site plan that there are secured parking for staff visitor parking up in the corner for visitors, and close to the public entrance and you'll be able to see the public entrance a little bit better. As we move into our rendered images there's also um fueling on site and transformers generator uh dumpster enclosure. This project uh will also be going after LEED certification so there are a number of items that this project has included that will work towards that. Some of the you can only see really here light-covered light-colored paving, which will reduce heat island effect. We also have solar panels to go up on the roof. Uh this project will use geothermal so there'll be geothermal wells out on the site uh for the HVAC. Uh there's also the native landscaping that will not require irrigation and the project uh materials themselves will be of some recycled materials, some low-emitting materials and then the systems within the the building will be energy-efficient in order to meet the city's sustainability goals, and one of those sustainability goals is to be a LEED-certified project. So that's a a broad overview of of the site. We have some rendered images that are um that Mike's gonna show us and all. Yeah so the first image here this will be the front elevation facing Beatties Ford Road. Um if you notice that um the public entry has actually mentioned um faces the corner of Beatties Ford and Miranda Road. The corner is um kind of recessed their welcoming to create a nice welcoming entry with canopy up above. Visitor parking will be off to the right. This would be Miranda Road in the distance here. Um materials we're using um a red brick dark metal panels and a red metal panel um and then pulling that red metal panel into the apparatus bay doors which you see here off to the left. Signage and sun shading on on the windows were necessary. Building takes on somewhat of a transitional design and feel. This will be another view of the apparatus bay here the the foreground the red doors. The red metal panel um with a vertical element to help celebrate the the the number of the Fire Station 46. You can also see a a kind of front porch element that's that'll connect both the public and um the fire department. So this would be looking um more the rear of the station. See where the the trucks would return um in the rear here into the apparatus bay doors. In the back off to the left here again this Miranda Road Beatties Ford Road out back to the front. The training stair located next to visitor parking here and just another view of of that area with the training stair because they're parking here in the foreground and then I think one final shot here again from looking at that that public entry corner in the four forr um yeah and then like actually mentioned several sustainable design elements, one of which featured in this view with the aerial showing the PV panels on the roof we also have an animation that will pull up this animation more or less walks around kind of the same path as those as the steel shots starting with elevations along Beatties Ford Road just gives you a better sense of scale and how the building starts to mass out and the training training stair visitor parking on this side and a view around to the rear where the trucks would return in the rear of the apparatus bay. Then overall you get a good idea of the full buildout of the site. The project itself does not take up the entire site that is there. Uh actually only about half of the site will be developed with this project, leaving lots of the vegetation and landscaping that's already in place with the site.
Don't have any questions currently in the box.
Um Billy if uh you have additional statements or anything you'd like for us to look at.
Um no I don't just if anyone has any questions as mentioned before you can type them in the box.
Oh um one thing I would uh like to mention um for schedule uh we anticipate construction beginning in Q1 of 2025 and um to have the fire station finished in Q1 of 2027.
We haven't received any questions. Well we don't have any questions. Um I want to thank everyone who was able to hop on the meeting and uh go over the presentation with us. Um thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you very much.
Hold on Billy. We may have a question. If you do have questions you need to type them into that question and answer box.
So the project is going to um serve as an infill facility uh to help alleviate high call volumes with surrounding stations, Um as far as cost we're still early in the design process uh in advanced planning and design um and we'll need to get closer to 60% design um before we can discuss the cost of the project.
We have a question about the sound of the vehicles. I would assume this is for the fire trucks. Uh so Billy uh myself or Chief Johnson can speak to that. Uh Chief I'll give you the option to go ahead.
Well I guess the question is are we referring to the siren use which is required for us to travel safely and respond to calls. I'm not sure on the on the specifics there I would assume that is the question itself um and we are required to do that uh when we're responding to emergency calls. I don't know if there's anything else you want to add there, Chief Winkles.
Uh no I was going to mention that uh um that would be the only different than the difference in the normal traffic that would be in the Miranda Road and uh Beatties Ford Road area.
Next question is does the fire department need approval from the city to move forward with the project? What will that timeline look like?
So fire department is a part of the city um and right now we're going through the the design process. Once the design has gotten further along and we have a better understanding of the cost estimate then we'll go forward with City Council for approval on funding. Um in terms of the timeline um if the timeline holds true right now construction ideally would begin in Q1 of 2025 and then the station would be finished in Q quarter 1 of 2027.
Um the next um I guess this is more of a statement. Um my mom lives beside the firehouse the sound will wake her up consistently as you go in and out. Um as Chief Johnson mentioned um when fire trucks need to go out they'll have to use their sirens that's a requirement for them and Billy we we strive to be good neighbors right. And so we can uh we can have some further discussion on that but we are required to use sirens while responding but we'll make every other effort to uh try to minimize the amount of noise um with a lot of the other work that we need to do around the station.
Um do we have any other questions?
That's yeah with this last question is asked about uh having a conversation. If you've got additional questions uh Billy's contact information is up on the screen with both his email and phone number and if you have additional questions you'll be able to contact him um and Billy do you want me to or me or Chief Johnson to speak speak to the uh surrounding stations?
Yes sir. Chief I'll give you the opportunity uh if you want to go ahead.
Sir you can go ahead.
Chief Winkles I'm still trying to sift through the questions. Uh yes sir so uh one of the questions is what are the surrounding stations and what is an infill station? So uh with all the annexation that's occurring in that area of the city or the county uh into the city uh one of the things that we strive for is the appropriate distribution of the stations which I spoke to earlier. Essentially what that means is uh we we strive for every uh property to be within five miles of a firehouse. And so with the annexation that's occurring in that area um the need came up to add another uh station. So what an infill means is an additional station to uh one of our normal. Typically it's a term that we use for something with within surrounded by other stations in this case it's actually an annexation that's driving this one but uh um as far as the other stations that are around there from the city of Charlotte we have station 28 uh which is at Statesville which is on Statesville. I apologize. And then further down Beatties Ford Road we have station 18, which is at Keller Drive near um West Charlotte and then uh obviously we have station 25 and station um 22 I guess would be the nearest ones am I missing them one and so those would be the other stations that we have uh 28 being the closest to that area.
Um we received another question. What happens with the LC Fire Department?
So uh Long Creek uh fire department will remain. Um there are still parts of the county that they are responsible for um and so that uh will not necessarily have an impact on the need for Long Creek as long as there's parts of the county that fall within their um still alarm response area and chief Winkles you can add any more needed.
No uh uh don't have anything else on that but uh um Chief R actually had a good point. I guess going back to um the previous question is a lot of this is to to maintain the the equity of service throughout the the department or throughout the city limits as we annex areas but uh no as far as the Long Creek I don't have anything to add.
Chief um so for the recording um it'll be made available at the same location that you were able to get the link um to log into this meeting. Um Ashley when do you think um I'll be able to get that from you?
We'll have it to you tomorrow or Monday and um yes okay so I would say next week um we should be able to have it up online uh for anyone to be able to view.
We have any more questions?
All right well thank you everyone who was able to join for the meeting. I'll let you get back to your evening. Good. Thank you.