FHA Sees Plans For New Ambulance Garage

By Kendra Bobowick

Turning to face the PowerPoint images of a proposed Newtown Ambulance Association building on screen, Fairfield Hills Authority members Wednesday heard about the site and building design features, while looking at renderings of a brick building with white trim, front entrance columns, and a cupola.

“It’s a beautiful design, and fits so well,” said First Selectman Pat Llodra.

Civil Engineer Don Smith, Jr, pointed to tennis courts in Fairfield Hills adjacent to the Victory Garden’s current location in a field across the street from Reed Intermediate School. The six-bay, roughly15,000-square-foot, two-floor garage includes bunk space, work, storage, and conference areas, a common room and men’s and women’s bathroom and shower facilities. He dragged his red, electronic pointer toward the old main entrance off Wasserman Way between Mile Hill South and the current campus main entrance across from Trades Lane.

A newer paved surface would lead to the garage, set back from the road. Although the mouth of the entrance accessing Wasserman Way will remain at that location, the driveway will no longer follow its current path, but be removed instead. A new drive will lie beside it and lead to the garage bays and parking areas. A new sidewalk will also “snake through the trees” and join existing walkways at Fairfield Hills “to share and be part of the campus,” he said.

Association President Bruce Herring listened as the architectural team discussed site plans for the estimate $4 million-plus project for which his board and association members will begin a fundraising drive in the near future. He hopes to have plans, town board approvals from the Planning and Zoning Commission, and Board of Selectman, and funding in place for a spring groundbreaking.

Dean Petrucelli of Silver/Petrucelli + Associates talked about lighting and architecture. Using the Fairfield Hills design guidelines established in previous years, he showed the freestanding light poles that would line the drive and certain walkway and parking areas. The architecture of brick and concrete and wooden columns on the front entrance mimic the current architecture of the Fairfield Hills building built in the 1930s. “We wanted to draw on original features,” he said. “We wanted to be inspired by the 1930s detail.” The attempt was to blend in the building, he said.

The floor plan, including six back-to-back, double-deep bays, prevents a longer row of bays from extending from the building, Mr Petrucelli explained. Instead ambulances can drive through the bays, park back-to-back, etc. The building overall is “as compact as possible,” he said. The second floor cupola will allow light straight through to the first floor, lighting the building’s center. The space will contain six 8-foot-by-10-foot bunk rooms, an office, a decontamination room, a members room for “living space,” washer and dryer, a commercial kitchen and storage, a conference room, and meeting room.

The building’s layout is “formal,” said Mr Petrucelli. “It’s parallel to many other buildings, reflecting the formal older structure.”

Ambulance Corps Chief Kris Peterson is pleased to see the conference room space where she hopes to hold training classes, which are always done off-site of the current 77 Main Street location, which is no longer big enough to accommodate the training and certification courses for the members. “It’s been more than ten0 years since we had a room,” she said. They have been holding classes at the high school and elsewhere, she said.

The building’s new address is 46 Keating Farm Avenue. Mrs Llodra was interested in Mr Herring’s anticipated groundbreaking. “Spring,” he said. Looking at the coming months’ approval process, including a public hearing, Mrs Llodra said, “I am confident this will gain approval.” Mr Herring will make a presentation to the Planning and Zoning Commission next week on June 21.