Council Eyes New, Simpler Plan: BAP! and Police/Fire Station to Switch Homes

Written by Redd Skyscraper Tuesday, 06 November 2012

Citing the negative feedback the Steamboat Springs City Council received for agreeing to sell the city's emergency-services building on Yampa Street to the local mini-conglomerate of BAP!/Big Agnes/Honey Stinger, and the desire for the fire and police departments to move from that building to a new campus away from the river, the council has agreed to a mutual compromise that they believe will please all parties involved.A city councilmember's seven-year-old daughter created this illustration of the proposed new five-story firehouse at the current BAP location on Oak Street. The resulting five-story firepole, not illustrated, is expected to be "freaking awesome!"

"Rather than sell the emergency-services building for money, and then have to find a place for them to work, we're suggesting that the two entities involved simply swap locations," said Killedkenny Triesagain, a Steamboat city council member and chief architect of the new plan. "BAP Agnes Stinger gets the building they want, and the fire and police people get a cute red building on Oak Street. Everyone wins! Easy peasy lemon squeazy!"

Under the plan, there's no actual cash transaction, so the city council can't take heat for selling the emergency services building for nearly $1 million below its appraised value, removing one of the headaches recently visited upon city council members.

Some critics have claimed that the cute little red house on Oak St. would be insufficient for housing a multi-departmental fire and police station, since it can't even accommodate a few dozen tents and sleeping bags, but proponents of the new plan believe that situation can be remedied by throwing money at the cute little red house.

"We're gonna 'blow the roof off of that place,' literally," added Triesagain. "All we have to do is approve some new zoning and regulations for the property. Then we'll remove the roof and stack on four more houses worth of space, straight up in the air. It'll be the most awesome five-story cute little red house fire and police department anyone has ever seen! Tourists will love it!"

A key element of the plan, which moved several members from against the idea to for its completion, was the thought of firemen racing down a five-story firepole from the barracks on the top floor to the waiting fire engines in the bottom two floors, one of which will shoot down a "Batman-like" ramp from the second story.

"Seriously, how much fun would that be?" asked a giddy Devin Komuniski, one of the council members swayed by the idea of the bitching, high-speed firepole. "The alarm rings, you throw on your pants and go racing down that bad boy at speeds up to, we're estimating, 30 miles per hour! What a rush! I'm thinking of joining the fire department just to be able to do that."

Since the council was planning on spending more than $11 million on a new fire and police campus at the Stockbridge Transit location, they believe they'll have more than enough money to make the necessary enhancements to the existing cute little red house to satisfy those departments' needs.

"Shoot, I bet we could add in a sixth level if we need to, with each floor replicating the cute little red feel of the original structure," added Komuniski. "Except we'll have that bad-ass fire ramp and the unthinkably fun firepole. We believe we can spend about the same amount of money, but have something everyone in the city can get behind and support, without all that negativity we've been reading about in the newspaper. And did I mention it would have a five-story firepole? I bet that's a record!"