Jamie Wier and Michael Boerner of Wier Boerner Allin Architecture in Jackson spoke to the Board of Aldermen about a new fire station for Brookhaven at Tuesday’s board meeting.

At an April board meeting Mayor Joe Cox announced that Brookhaven would receive state funds to construct a new station.

They began the presentation by thanking the board for giving the firm the opportunity to work on the Brookhaven Community Storm Shelter.

“That was one of our highlighted projects, and we really enjoyed working with the city on that,” Boerner said. “We still showcase that project when we talk about city work. We’ve grown from the two of us to 18 employees since then. We’ve done work from Colorado to South Carolina. We’ve done assisted living homes, and we’re currently doing the baseball stadium at Mississippi State University. We’ve also done a lot of fire stations and that’s why we’re here.”

Wier and Boerner distributed a packet detailing all of the fire stations their firm has completed.

“The main station that you see was in Flowood — it was a project I worked before we started our firm when I was the project manager at another firm,” Wier said. “That’s when I worked with Chief Pace. It was Flowood’s central station, which was a two-bay station, as well as a fire training facility.”

“We’re doing something similar in Brandon right now,” Wier said. “Like a lot of other cities, the insurance rating bureau came in and told them they needed to build and told them kind of where they need to build. Brandon had to build three new stations to get compliant. We successfully designed the prototype and basically repeated that prototype in the various locations. We’ve built three, 5,000 square foot stations for just over $1 million each. We’ve had a ribbon cutting on two of those, and we have the ribbon cutting on the third one in the next few weeks.”

In addition, Wier said the firm is working on a small, two-bay volunteer station in Walnut Grove that will cost approximately $350,000.

“As you can see we’ve done a lot of fire stations, and they have a special place in our heart,” Wier said. “It is something that I have thoroughly enjoyed working with. Not only the just the building themselves, but the opportunity to get to know the chiefs and the men and women who put their lives on the line everyday for their communities. It’s a way to give back. It’s a project that we take very seriously.”

In the packet that Wier and Boerner presented, there were three recommendation letters, each written by the current or retired fire chief the firm worked with on its fire station projects.

Ward 6 Alderman David Phillips asked Wier if he had a design template for a station that would cost approximately $600,000.

“There’s just a lot of variation in the stations, but because we’ve done so many stations, we have a pretty good formula if you will for coming up with a station that will fit within that budget,” Wier said.

“With any building it really boils down to the square footage,” Boerner said. “We just have to stay within the square footage of the budget.”

Brookhaven is set to receive $625,000 in state funding for the project if the state’s Bond Commission signs off the project. The funding was included as part of a $250 million bond bill.

Fire Chief Tony Weeks, the mayor and the board have been pitching the city’s need to replace Fire Station 2 on Willard Street to different sources for the last two and a half years, Cox said.

The board didn’t take action on the proposal. It plans to wait until the city receives the funding to do so.

Wier Boerner Allin is the second architecture firm to present its ideas to the board on the proposed fire station. Steve Cox of Cox Architecture in McComb presented his plan at the May 3 board meeting.

 

Williams Street bridge

County engineer Ryan Holmes updated the board Tuesday about the repair progress occurring on the Williams Street bridge.

If all goes well and the weather cooperates, the bridge will be open to residents this week, Holmes said.

“They’ve set all of the spans,” Holmes said Tuesday. “They are working on the bridge rail. They hoped to grout in the bridge deck today — that’s actually concrete they pour in the joints between the spans of the bridge — but of course it rained all day, so hopefully tomorrow they can do that. As soon as they do that and we’ve inspected it, we will open the bridge to traffic. It looks good. We’ve kept a close watch on that.”

Cox praised Dickerson & Bowen for their speedy repairs to the bridge.

“Considering the situation and the seriousness, they jumped on it real quick,” Cox said.

“They did,” Holmes said. “There have been several days they haven’t worked but they’ve been managing two jobs at once, but for the most part they’ve been very responsive.”

 

In other board business:

• Public Works Director Keith Lewis cleared up some confusion regarding the paving of North Church Street. Lewis said North Church Street will be repaved as part of two plans to replace sewer lines in the city during the end of last year. The work is not included in the city-wide paving projected awarded to Dickerson & Bowen in January.

• Mike McKenzie, WGK engineer, reported the city is currently taking bids for the Manson Street pump station. The bids will be taken through June 20. The project should be completed by the end of October, McKenzie said.

• The board approved McKenzie’s request to advertise for bids to repair the crumbling brick storm drain at the intersection of South Church Street and West Chickasaw Street.