New Base Moves Closer to Reality: County Finds Spot for Emergency Medical Service
Posted on: Thursday, 22 December 2005, 15:00 CST
By James Moffat, Times-News, Burlington, N.C., Times-News, Burlington, N.C.
Dec. 22--GRAHAM -- Over the last 30-plus years, the Alamance County Emergency Medical Service has seen change come its way on numerous fronts.
About the only thing that hasn't changed has been the place where EMS workers call home.
Since 1973, EMS has worked out of the 5,500-square-foot base station on McAden Street in Graham.
While the facility served its purpose when it first came online, the changing landscape of Alamance County has put a strain on the building, which in turn has put a strain on the employees.
Now EMS is ready to move to a new home.
The department has gone from responding to about 6,000 calls a year to more than 20,000 calls each year. Federal and state requirements have mandated what items need to be stored by the department and exact ways on how to store those items.
And with more than 100 fulland part-time EMS employees, a 15-vehicle fleet and "three times more equipment" being stored than when the department first entered the building, EMS Director John Breitmeier knows that more space is needed.
"We have just grossly outgrown the building," Breitmeier said.
The Alamance County commissioners this week agreed to negotiate with a Gastonia architect to design a new EMS base station.
The likely spot for the new station will be on seven acres near the county's maintenance yard just off N.C. 87 south of Interstate 85/40.
"I'm just real glad to see it become a reality," Breitmeier said. "I think the commissioners and the county manager are now committed to it." The EMS director said he would like to see a new facility "three to four times" the size of the existing building -- about 16,500 to 22,000 square feet -- that would allow the department to handle the county's "immediate needs plus those 20 years out." County Manager David Smith said the county is " hoping to build" the facility for between $90 and $100 a square foot.
Based on that estimate, a new 20,000-square-foot base station could cost the county upwards of $2 million.
"Hopefully we can stay around $1.5 million," Smith said.
Breitmeier said that any discussion of costs is "really premature" since the county has yet to even sign a contract with the architect.
He added that the final cost would "depend on how sophisticated" the county wanted to get with the design of the building.
In the county's most recent Capital Improvement Program, approved by the commissioners in June, thencounty manager David Cheek called the need for a new facility "urgent." James Moffat can be reached at james_moffat@link.freedom.com
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Source: Times-News
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