• Site of new fire station

MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - At the July 15 Township Board meeting, the Board rejected the bids for the new fire station.

The bids were much higher than the $3.5 million that voters approved in November 2012.

Groundbreaking for the new fire station was expected to take place this month, but with the bids being over-budget construction is being delayed.

“We’ve got to redesign the building because obviously with the bids, we can’t afford the 15,000 square feet. We’re looking at a number of things: possibly the elimination of the fourth bay,” said Frank Walsh, Meridian Township Manager.

“Once we have those changes and we have that plan so we know what they are, then we can start that site plan review process,” said Mark Kieselbach, Meridian Township Director of Community Planning and Development.

This process has already been done before, but has to be repeated every time the plans are changed.

Meanwhile residents give their own reasons for the fire station not being built yet.

“The bottom line in my opinion is the people in the condo, for whatever reason they come up with next, just don’t want it there,” said Meridian Township resident, Ed Jones. “We’re now into technicalities instead of real reasons why it shouldn't be built there.”

“It’s not us that did it. We delayed things by eight months. We didn't delay them by two and a half years. That was mostly because people wanted a bigger station and were getting greedy,” said Autumn Park Condominium resident, Sue Simpkin.

Walsh said no one is to blame for this.

“We actually are looking at 2012 construction numbers when we put the bond out. It took us until 2014 for a variety of reasons to bid the project out, and it’s two years later and obviously it’s a different economy than it was two years ago,” said Walsh.

Until the new fire station is built, the temporary station will remain open and active.

“You know, the fire departments easily adapts to changing situations. We have to do that on a day-to-day basis. So this is just another, another stepping-stone to, to, to get through a hurdle to jump over,” said Bill Priese, Chief of Training and EMS Operations for Meridian Township Fire Department. “I have great faith that we’re going to have a new station in 2015.”

The project is expected to be rebid by late September or early October, and ground breaking for the fire station will be either late this year or early next year. Officials are hopeful that the new station will be built in 2015.