COLUMBIA, S.C. — The City of Columbia will soon be building a new fire station, replacing Olympia Park Station on Ferguson Street. Fire officials say the project will accommodate the anticipated growth of the department.
The current fire station in Olympia is housed in a former flower shop that was built back in 197. It was converted into a fire house in the 1990s, and now the department has outgrown the facility. The replacement will be located on Bluff Road. The new firehouse will be able to hold more resources, equipment and possibly another fire truck.
“When it comes to safety, when it comes to the hot, warm, cold zone, when it comes to place to study, place, to fellowship with one, another place to have, you know, to eat is everything about this place is new and different and also expansion. So, when you look at the future, when we designed this firehouse, we thought about the future. We thought about future growth," said Mickey Folsom, assistant Chief of Administration of Columbia Fire Department.
Fire officials say the new firehouse will be able to house up to 9 personnel, the current location only holds 5. They also want the new site to provide crew members a healthier environment, including a new cancer prevention initiative.
“They'll hook up a an exhaust system capture and so they can drive into the station, and that eliminate, eliminates some of the cancer call carcinogens that is prevalent in exhaust systems, as well as when our firefighters come from a scene, you know, we go into different type of scenes as toxic," Folsom said.
There are four phases of the project, and phase one is complete with schematic design. The other phases are construction drawings, beginning construction, and project closeout. The total cost of the project is estimated to be around $10 million. The money will come from general funds and a grant.
“This new fire house, we do have a community room that our citizens can come and and, you know, have some meetings or be a part of what we do. But you know, any firehouse is the citizens firehouse. They can come by at any time," said Folsom.
The final review for the construction drawings is the next phase, fire officials say this should be completed in the Spring of 2025.
Columbia fire officials told us they expect for the project to be completed around Winter of 2026 or Spring of 2027.