Ambulance barn price tag swells
Staff writer
An ambulance station in Hillsboro expected to cost $488,000 will now cost $496,000 after the city of Hillsboro deemed it a public parking garage.
“Hillsboro wants the public parking garage I have to have a carbon monoxide ventilation system,” emergency medical services director Travis Parmley said.
The county in May purchased a metal building to be built near the police station.
The plan is twofold: to have a freestanding ambulance station instead of county ambulances taking space in the Hillsboro fire department, and to have the ambulance station in an area Hillsboro has set aside for all emergency services.
Parmley said he talked to Hillsboro code enforcement officer Ben Steketee about his determination the ambulance station would be “a public parking garage,” and when Steketee did not change his determination, Parmley talked to Hillsboro city administrator Matt Stiles.
Both stuck to the decision.
Steketee said building codes require any garage except a residential garage to have a carbon monoxide ventilation system. If an ambulance was left running long enough, it would leak carbon monoxide into the building, and paramedics do sleep in the building, Steketee said.
As of now, building framework is completed, but construction is at a standstill because insulation has not arrived.
The ventilation system is on order, Parmley said.
How long it will take to finish construction is an open question.
“I’m truly hoping sometime in January, but that might be a little too hopeful,” Parmley said.