ARCHITECTURE PROJECT PROFILE

Thomas Corners Fire Department, Glenville Fire District #7

C.T. Male provided the multi-discipline design team responsible for the new Thomas Corners 18,000-square-foot, single-story fire station, designed to meet all the needs of a modern essential facility. Professional services provided included an assessment of the existing facility, survey, environmental site assessment, land development planning, an evaluation of the building systems and programming for the planned expansion.

The original station was sorely undersized and was no longer adequate for present-day requirements. Newer fire apparatus sizes, changing types of services, increased number of calls, growth in membership, training and storage demands, along with current OSHA and NFPA rules and regulations regarding firefighter health and safety, made the previous facility inadequate. The new building consists of six apparatus bays, with areas for maintenance and a storage mezzanine located above the locker corridor at the rear of the front-loaded bays. Toilet rooms, shower rooms, exercise facilities, mechanical space and a radio room comprise the remainder of the apparatus portion of the facility, including a hot-water radiant slab.

The balance of the facility consists of District, Firematic, Company and Auxiliary offices, a training/meeting room, toilets, kitchen and firefighter recreation room. The meeting room is large enough to accommodate all District training activities and can be divided with a folding partition. The new facility is protected throughout by a wet-pipe sprinkler system, and has been recognized by the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs on their Honor Role of New York’s Fully Sprinklered Fire Stations.

The site presented a design challenge to provide sufficient space to expand the program, while providing adequate parking and proper site circulation. In addition, special requirements to comply with FAA regulations needed to be addressed, due to the site’s proximity to the Schenectady County Airport. This was also one of the first new stations in the area to meet the new seismic design requirements of the Building Code for an essential facility design.

The new station provided the needed space and all the Firematically correct program elements needed to achieve the Fire District’s goal of serving the community. The project also received a generous incentive from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority by incorporating many energy-saving features into this public facility.