Paisley will soon have a new fire hall, part of a $4.7-million project that includes a new public works building next door.
“Council has been saving for years to replace the Paisley Fire Hall,” municipal spokeswoman Jennifer Isber-Legge said in an emailed response to questions. “These savings combined with a loan from Infrastructure Ontario and the support of the Canada Community Building Fund will pay for it.
“This is the largest capital project that Arran-Elderslie has undertaken.”
Construction is expected to start on the fire hall within two weeks, Fire Chief Steve Tiernan said Wednesday. It will replace Paisley’s current Station 80, which was built in 1973, on Goldie Street or Bruce County Road 11, east of Paisley’s unique, red wooden hose tower.
“The old fire hall we have, there’s not a lot of room in it,” Tiernan said by phone Wednesday. “So any time we would need to train in it you would have to pull the trucks out so you would have an area. With the new fire hall, we’re thinking to the future. This is a 60-, 70-year structure for us.”
The fire hall will be about 14,000 square feet, and will add a third bay. The new buildings will take about one year to build on land at the south end of Paisley, along Bruce County Road 3. The Paisley fire hall is one of three in the municipality. The others are in Tara and Chesley. Each has a staffing capacity of 25 volunteers. Paisley currently as 22 volunteer firefighters.
A fire department master plan completed in 2020 said needs have outgrown the existing two-bay structure, with later addition. There’s no room to expand at that site, space for equipment and training is lacking, and bunker gear lacks a ventilated storage room. The training room is small.
With a larger training area, more firefighters from other departments could attend the same training in the new hall, saving municipal costs, the master plan said. There’s a single administration washroom and no showers for a 25-member volunteer service in the current fire hall.
It has taken time to visit other fire halls in Ontario to help come up with the design that’s right for Paisley, Tiernan said. That’s been part of the work of the fire hall sub-committee formed before Tiernan was hired in 2021, he said. It took time to find a suitable site, he added.
The new fire hall “will include enhanced training areas, a healthy and safe work environment and will enable Arran-Elderslie Fire and Emergency Services to respond to emergencies, save lives, and strengthen the sense of security that our community relies on,” a municipal news release said.
The project will also include a new public works building “that will provide a larger modern space for maintenance operations for municipal roads and equipment to support the growing needs of Paisley and the surrounding area,” the release said.