Excerpts from the journal-topics.com:
On Wednesday April 15, the Mount Prospect Fire Dept. officially moved into its new headquarters Station 13 at 111 E. Rand Rd. The village board approved the project in 2018 and construction began in 2019. The project involved adaptive reuse of an existing building, saving $3.7 million in overall costs versus the construction of a new building.
The total project budget of $10.37 million included the purchase of the land and existing building, design fees and soft costs, hard construction costs, project contingencies, plus furniture and fixture purchases. The project was funded through bond sales completed in 2018 and was structured to have zero effect on future tax levies, due to a financing strategy developed by staff and financial consultants, which included refinancing old debt and using village reserves and moderate use of capitalized interest in the debt service repayment plan.
The village recently announced a proposal to redevelop a portion of Block 56 in Mount Prospect’s downtown, which is the block bounded by Northwest Highway, Maple Street, Busse Avenue, and Emerson Street. The proposed development would include the site of the police and fire headquarters and the Chase Bank property at 111 E. Busse Ave.
#1 by Chuck on April 21, 2020 - 9:45 AM
There was never any true interest on the part of the City in doing this station relocation for the Fire Department’s benefit. The land that station sat on was far too valuable for something as pedestrian as a fire station. Any dummy driving down Northwest Highway looking at the downtown development could see that.