Photo by Jon Anderson
The Hoover Fire Department plans to build a new Fire Station No. 1 on this site at 1596 Montgomery Highway in Hoover, Alabama. The site formerly was home to a bank building that was torn down in early 2024.
The Hoover City Council last week doubled its budget to build a new Fire Station No. 1 on U.S. 31 from $3 million to $6 million.
The actual construction cost came in at $5.25 million, but with architectural and engineering fees added, the total cost should be about $5.7 million, said Jehad Al-Dakka, the city’s chief operations officer.
Fire Chief Clay Bentley told the City Council that the $3 million in the original 2024 budget was never expected to be the actual construction price. That’s just how much money was available at the time the budget was put together, Bentley said.
With construction costs rising, city officials weren’t sure how high bids would be, Bentley said. They originally had anticipated the cost could go as high as $500 per square foot, he said. But with this fire station being about 8,800 square feet, the lowest responsible bid ended up at $597 per square foot.
The total cost of $5.7 million for construction, engineering and architectural fees is in addition to the $1.3 million the city paid to buy the former bank property in October 2022.
Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Cornett said the $3 million added to the budget is coming from interest the city is accumulating on $93 million the city borrowed in March of last year for three major projects — a new Interstate 459 interchange, an arts center and renovations at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.
The city as of the end of February had about $4.2 million in interest earned since the $93 million in warrants were issued, and after arbitrage costs are considered, $3.1 million was available for use, Cornett said. The city is earning about $300,000 a month from that warrant issue, and that money must be spent on capital projects, she said.
To save some money, city employees handled demolition of the former bank building instead of contracting that work out, Al-Dakka said.
When the 9,000-square-foot Hoover Fire Station No. 11 was built in Trace Crossings in 2021, it cost Signature Homes about $3 million to build it, but it probably would have cost $4 million to $4.5 million if it had been built by a general contractor, Signature Homes President Jonathan Belcher said then.
Bentley told the council another fire station in the metro area cost $9 million to build.
Eight companies bid on the construction job for Hoover Fire Station No. 1, but one bidder was excluded because its bid packet wasn’t properly sealed, Bentley said. The lowest bidder, Domiguez Design-Build, was able to legally remove its bid of $4.3 million because that company made a gross error in its calculations, he said.
That left Kyser Construction of Tuscaloosa as the lowest bidder of the six remaining bidders, at $5.25 million.
Bentley said “we’re not building the fanciest fire station,” but city officials and Aho Architects have worked hard to design a station that meets the Fire Department’s needs and that will better serve residents.
This new station at 1596 Montgomery Highway has 120 feet of frontage on U.S. 31 and will be located between Salvatore’s Pizza & Pasta and the Stone Creek Dental Care building. It will have three vehicle bays, one of which will be a drive-through bay, Al-Dakka said. Another section of the building will be two stories with sleeping quarters upstairs.
This building will replace the existing Fire Station No. 1, which is just a couple of hundred yards to the west behind the Hoover Court shopping center. That fire station originally was built in the early 1960s and is the oldest municipal building the city has. It was built by volunteer firefighters and used as both a fire station and meeting place even before the city incorporated.
While it has been renovated and expanded over the years and functioned well for 50 to 60 years, it’s still old and not as functional, modern and visible as city officials would like it to be, Mayor Frank Brocato said previously.
In other business last week, the Hoover City Council:
- Approved spending an additional $250,000 for renovations and maintenance work at the Hoover Randle Home & Gardens, with that money coming from interest earned from last year’s $93 million warrant issue in March.
- Agreed to hire The Waymaker Group as a consulting firm to develop a master plan to further transform Riverchase Corporate Park into an “innovation district.” The $200,000 cost is being paid completely with a grant from the new Innovate Alabama Network, which is an initiative aimed at fostering innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the state. The hope is to recruit more health technology, life science and pharmaceutical companies to Riverchase.
- Approved an alcohol sales license for Hyderabad House Alabama at 1694 Montgomery Highway, Suite 118.
- Held a first reading for an ordinance to have the city attorney appointed solely by the Hoover City Council and to have the City Council set the pay amount for the city attorney and any other legal services. Since 1984, the city attorney has been selected by whomever was mayor, with confirmation from the City Council. A vote on that ordinance is scheduled for April 15.
- Held a first reading of an ordinance to annex a single-family residence at 2849 Berkeley Drive.
