The new La Glace Fire Hall, while it was still under construction in November, 2019 (Photo by Liam Verster)

By Liam Verster

La Glace Fire Hall

New La Glace fire hall expected to open in June

May 27, 2020 | 12:20 PM

Almost exactly two years after the tender was awarded, the new fire station in the Hamlet of La Glace is set to open in mid-June.

The tender was awarded on June 25, 2018, to Southwest Design & Construction.

Dan Lemieux, the Community Services Director for the County of Grande Prairie, says the Certificate of Substantial Completion has now been issued by the builder, which says the construction is essentially complete, minus a few deficiencies that still need addressing.

“We expect to have all the deficiencies rectified by June 15. So, we plan on starting the move into the new La Glace Fire Hall by mid-June.”

Fire Chief Dan Verdun says he and the firefighters are excited to move in there, and that the new hall will have upgraded facilities.

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“We have areas now that are dedicated to allow us to train inside the station, better housing of the equipment. Just more ample room to allow our crew to grow into and work within that station that we don’t recognize at the station we’re currently in.

“The station that we’re in was fantastic for the time, it was built back in 1994, but just through natural growth, we’ve outgrown it. The apparatus are bigger, we have a larger roster, we do more services, and quite honestly the building there now is just a little small. So this building is substantially larger, has areas dedicated for us to work in, to train in, to work on and maintain our vehicles. So, we’re really looking forward to getting in there.”

The old La Glace Fire Hall (photo by Liam Verster)

Lemieux says the new fire hall has a gym, which is pretty standard for fire stations these days, along with a good-sized training area, and drive-through bays to make it easier to get the vehicles in and out of the station. He says he’s very impressed with the new fire hall, and that he’s not the only one who’s eye it’s caught.

“We’ve actually been contacted by a couple other municipalities that are interested in purchasing the plans and building similar facilities. So, it turned out to be a beautiful facility that I think the local community will be very thrilled with.”

Lemieux couldn’t say at the time which municipalities wanted to purchase the plans, but does say that Beaverlodge will be in need of a new fire hall in the near future, and they may consider using these plans.

The construction of the new fire hall has not been without hiccups and delays. The original budget for the project was set at $1,949,500, but by November 2018, there was a major cost overrun in the project related to site remediation. The overrun ended up costing an additional $377,000, and led to the formation of the La Glace Fire Hall Construction Committee.

Once the Committee was formed, they had to negotiate with the contractors to deal with the remediation, as well as land title issues. This ended up causing a delay through the winter of 2018-2019, and construction resumed in the spring of 2019.

Though the construction will be complete in mid-June, it may take an additional few weeks for operations to fully move to the new fire hall in La Glace because of the COVID-19 restrictions.