Town, Nauset Officials Talk Fire Station

ORLEANS – On paper, last week’s joint meeting between the select board and the Nauset regional school committee focused on the need for a new fire station in town. But for officials on both sides, it was just as much about leaving the past behind and forging a better working relationship moving forward.

The two bodies left the Aug. 28 session at Nauset Regional High School with a pledge to improve communications, citing misinformation and miscommunication surrounding the project which has stood in the way of the two sides working together. Andrea Reed of the select board called the joint meeting “an opportunity for a reset.”

“I think we’ve all been victims of bad communication, of miscommunication,” she said. “But this should be looked at as the start of a new process.”

The select board has $4.5 million in hand to design a new station, thanks to approval from voters at May’s annual town meeting and town election. At the joint meeting, select board members said they believe a new fire facility can be built entirely on town-owned land near the site of the existing station on Eldredge Park Way. But they also didn’t rule out the potential for easements on abutting land to possibly allow access to the station.

The regional school committee was one of approximately 100 abutters to the potential project site that received a letter from the town seeking “easement access to the existing parcel where the fire station is,” Town Manager Kim Newman said. Judi Schumacher, chair of the regional school committee, said the letter was received at the end of June.

“We have been meeting with a number of those abutters about getting access to the existing parcel, hard stop,” she said.

The existing station on Eldredge Park Way opened its doors in 1987 but no longer meets the needs of a modern fire facility. In 2020, an HVAC study found deficiencies in air quality inside the building, while operations have also physically outgrown the current station.

Very preliminary renderings presented to the board by Cambridge-based Galante Architecture Studio show that a new station could be sited fronting Eldredge Park near Orleans Elementary School. But Select Board Chair Kevin Galligan said that while that location is “ideal,” given concerns that were raised at May’s annual town meeting about the potential proximity of a new station to the school, the board is interested in exploring Nauset’s willingness to allow a station on land at nearby Nauset Regional Middle School.

“Conversations about a secondary location somewhere placed on school district land are not the intention, but [we’re certainly] open to it,” Newman told the regional committee.

Galligan said siting a new station on middle school land would allow the property to tie into the town sewer system quicker. Currently, the area is tentatively scheduled to be connected in the future.

“It’s way out there,” he said.

But absent a concrete design, some school committee members said it is difficult to say what the district is or isn’t willing to concede to help accommodate a new station.

“I don’t understand what the ask is,” said Tom Fitzgibbons of the regional school committee. “What do you want, and how do we fit into this request?”

A timetable put forth by the select board calls for a final design to be in place in time for the town to secure construction funding at the May 2026 annual town meeting. If that comes to pass, construction on the new facility could be completed by late 2028.

With the May deadline less than a year away, Chris Easley of the school committee said that meeting that timeline could be “very difficult,” especially as all four Nauset towns would have to support any negotiation on the use of district land.

But time is money, said Newman, adding that the cost of the project, currently estimated at approximately $45 million, would go up about $1 million for every six months the project is delayed.

“It’s a lot to ask, but we wanted to make sure to come here to tell you that we’re absolutely open to whatever if you wanted to consider it,” she said. “But we don’t have something specific in mind.”

Clouding discussions on the project have been a number of schematics, renderings and unofficial station concepts that have entered the public discourse in recent years, as well as rumors and misinformation around the project that have circulated in recent years. 

“So it’s confusing,” said school committee member Elizabeth Paine of Orleans. 

“There’s just so much hearsay,” said Fitzgibbons. 

For Easley, there was also some distrust over a past rendering from 2021 that showed a potential fire station on middle school land where a ballfield currently sits. That rendering came without the school committee’s knowledge, he said, prompting concerns in the district about how a station might impact middle school property.

But Mark Mathison of the select board said his board was just as surprised to see that rendering at the 2021 meeting as Nauset officials were. He said his board was “blindsided” by the presentation.

“As a member of the select board in Orleans, I was appalled that that happened,” he said.

That aside, Easley and others on the regional school committee said communication between the committee and the town have been lacking in general regarding fire station planning.

“With all due respect, it’s been five years and this is the first time we’re having a discussion,” he said.

Schumacher asked the select board directly if the board was interested in the regional committee having discussions about the potential use of middle school land to support a new station. Galligan said yes, so long as those discussions align with the town’s May 2026 timeline.

Despite the tight timeline, Schumacher expressed optimism that the two sides can work together with a fresh start.

“I don’t want to get into a discussion in the middle,” she said. “I want to get into it from the beginning.”

Newman, meanwhile, said she hopes to have any responses to the town’s solicitations for easements or acquisitions in place in time for the fall town meeting in November.

“I hope this is just the beginning of these conversations,” said Kari Hoffman of the regional school committee.