CANMORE – The Town of Canmore will soon start the detailed design process for a new fully equipped eight-bay fire hall along Palliser Trail.
Elected officials approved a recommendation to proceed with the design of the new hall, which would see added storage space and training areas, to replace the current fire hall located on 10th Street.
Fire Chief Walter Gahler presented two options to council at its Tuesday (Dec. 3) meeting. The first, which was approved unanimously, is to build the fire hall in the short-term (three-to-five years), with the current building being vacated and repurposed and a second fire hall built in 30 years. The second was to build the fire hall in the short term, while renovating and maintaining the current building on 10th Street until a second hall can be built in 30 years.
“In a nut shell the report recommends a two-fire hall solution for the Town of Canmore in a 30 to 50 year window and given that we have physical constraints on how large the Town can actually grow, a two fire hall solution at most would be the answer for the Town of Canmore,” said Gahler.
“To that point, administration is recommending option number 1, which is the Palliser site, and that’s really due to a long-term cost analysis, flexibility associated with staffing and potential service level increases.”
The plan to build a new fire hall has been in the works for several years, but was really propelled forward when a study released in 2016 indicated a new fire hall as one of the most pressing needs for the municipal government.
According to Gahler, the current hall on 10th Street at Railway Avenue is vulnerable to traffic congestion due to its location, which can affect response times.
In July, Gahler presented a second report on the fire hall to council, which recommended two new fire halls – an eight-bay hall along Palliser Trail and a four-bay hall in Three Sisters – as appropriate to meet the future emergency response needs of the community.
Palliser Trail is recommended as a possible site for a new hall for a number of reasons, including its location with respect to response times; available municipally owned land and access to the highway. The study indicated there is no single site within Canmore that could provide ideal travel times to all neighbourhoods.
Gahler said by developing a fire hall at the Palliser Trail location first, more options become available.
“By doing the Palliser location first it provides us with more flexibility and options, and by locating in on a major artery, like [the Trans-Canada Highway], etcetera, it does provide good access to the neighbourhoods south of us to the Stewart Creek area already,” he said.
Approved in Canmore's 2020 capital budget, $900,000 has been put aside for the design of the fire hall, which Gahler said would be used for master planning and conceptual design. Also set out in the five-year capital plan was $12 million for construction, but Gahler said the Fire Hall Staffing Study put costs around $13.4 million to $14.6 million. The budget, Gahler said, will be clearer after the design phase.
Mayor John Borrowman expressed concerns about railway traffic if the fire hall is moved.
“I’m curious if there’s an ability when a call comes in, say the call is in this part of Canmore, so there’s an option from that location to get to the rest of Canmore either from the parkway or the direct route,” asked Borrowman.
“Is there a possibility of some sort of a informational network so that the fire hall, your department, is aware of the train schedule?”
Gahler said his team plans to research options further and even potentially partner with CP Rail to get some sort of notice of the train schedule.
“I believe there would be a possibility to get notification on when a train is coming through,” he said.
“That would be a partnership. That would be something I would really like to pursue, because I think that would be important to the Town on a lot of different levels.”
For Councillor Joanna McCallum, choosing the Palliser Trail site is a good option, as she believes the overall subdivision will continue to flourish.
“Choosing the Palliser site makes a lot of sense from a variety of positions all of which are outlined in the report, but I think that it also has an opportunity to provide an anchor for what I see in the future as being an amazing neighbourhood over in Palliser, and it would be great to see a public building over in that area," she said.
A second motion recommended by administration was to consider affordable housing opportunities as part of the design for the fire hall.
“On that second recommendation … I’m wondering if we can expand it slightly,” said Gahler.
“I think if the recommendation speaks to the possibility of affordable housing within the fire hall project itself, but that may be slightly limiting other very interesting possibilities that might be incorporated into the fire hall itself, but I would suggest that the large parcel of land, we should be looking at opportunities within that area for affordable housing.”
