Residents, Board Press For Lighter Touch In Fire Station Design

ORLEANS – Perry Antone’s home is located directly across the street from the town’s fire station on Eldredge Park Way. Sometimes that has its advantages, he told the fire rescue building committee last week, such as when his young son hurt his hand.
 
“My wife didn’t know what to do,” he said. “She ran him across the street, and they were able to help us and get us sent to where we needed to go.”
 
But while being close to the department is a “godsend,” Antone raised concerns about the proposed design of the town’s new fire station, plans for which call for the new facility to be located much closer to Eldredge Park Way.
 
“It may not bring people to say ‘Oh, I want to move to Orleans,’ but it’s made me and my wife consider moving out of Orleans because of this big building now that’s in our front yard,” he told the committee July 16.
 
The committee took public input on the proposed exterior design of the 39,000-square-foot station, which will replace the existing station that’s set further back on Eldredge Park Way. Ted Galante, the project architect with The Galante Architecture Studio in Cambridge, presented a rendering showing a new facility with living and office quarters on the left and a new apparatus bay on the right.

The living and office portion would have a gabled roof and wood paneling to give it a “warm,” Cape-style feel, Galante said. On the side, a trellis covering would hang over the exterior of the first floor living quarters, while office space would be situated on the second floor.
 
The new apparatus bay, meanwhile, would have a flat standing seam metal roof with a brick exterior, materials Galante said are designed to give the new station the durability it needs to last several decades. An ambulance bay separates the two components, helping to break up the massing of the building.
 
Other features include a training tower at the rear of the apparatus bay as well as an outbuilding for storage and a solar canopy at the rear of the property. Additional solar panels will also be affixed to the gabled roof to help the station operate as a net-zero facility that will generate all of the power that it needs to operate.
 
Plans also currently call for 19 public parking spaces to the left of the living and office quarters. Behind the station, an additional 45 parking spaces will be reserved for staff and people visiting for training.
 
Assistant Town Manager Mark Reil said in designing the new station, town officials and the project’s design team sought to walk the line between presenting an aesthetically pleasing building and keeping the project at or below its $55 million budget.
 
“Our focus has been on how do we get the building we need for our community without really breaking the bank?” he said.
 
But residents in attendance of the July 16 meeting took issue with the proposed design, calling for a more aesthetically pleasing look that is more in character with the surrounding area.
 
Bob Wilkinson said the brick apparatus bay looked too “institutional” and suggested that composite clapboard siding be used consistently across the entire building.
 
“I think whenever you use alternating coverings, it just doesn’t work,” he said. Wilkinson said he also favored having a gabled roof over both parts of the new station.
 
Chris Donner of Orleans said the new station as currently designed would be “another unremovable stain on what is left of the town’s character.”
 
“Don’t bring us Framingham when we are just fine with Orleans,” he said.
 
Megan Kelly, another immediate abutter who lives across from the site of the new station, lamented the loss of green space that would come with the proposed design. She also raised concerns about the lack of privacy for her and her neighbors that would come with building the new station so close to the roadway.
 
“It’s so hard for me to speak here, because it is so personal to me,” Kelly said. “This isn’t just about the safety of the fire department. It’s about my property, my view. It’s about my everyday life, just living a nice life in my little town that I love so much that I came back to after years of being gone.”
 
But committee members said there is little to be done about the location of the station. David Lyttle, the committee’s chair, said that the topography of the site, as well as the need to keep the existing station in operation during construction, requires that the new facility be situated where it is proposed.
 
Kelly asked if reducing the parking in the rear of the property would allow space for the station to be set back further from the road.
 
“We can look at that,” Lyttle said. “I don’t know if it’s possible to push it back further.”
 
Rich Morongell, a local architect, asked if it was possible to keep the current station in use as part of plans for the new facility, which he said might help reduce the massing fronting Eldredge Park Way. But Lyttle said the current station, which has been in operation since 1987, is past its functional use.
 
“I don’t know if you’ve been on a tour,” he said. “They’re living in squalid conditions.”
 
Orleans resident Tom Finan, meanwhile, called into question plans for the new station to be serviced by an on-site septic system as residents throughout town are being ordered to abandon their Title 5 systems to tie into town sewer.
 
“I question the mixed message that this sends with the idea of building something brand new and putting a septic system in,” Finan said. Public Works Director Rich Waldo said the options are being explored between using septic and connecting to town sewer.
 
The committee is due to decide on a final design at its July 27 meeting. Committee members echoed many of the concerns raised by residents regarding the project design last week.
 Mark Mathison said that in his discussions with residents in recent weeks, there’s a desire to see a new station that is functional without being overbearing or out of character with the look of the town.
 
“It serves an important function,” he said of the station. “We want it to be appropriate to serve that function, but it doesn’t need to make a statement.”
 
Lyttle said he didn’t like the “mixed elements” incorporated into the design, from the mix of wood, stone and break to the various, red, white and brown colors. Peter Coneen of the committee said he would favor a porch-style roof over the proposed trellis on the side of the building.
 
Fire Chief Geof Deering also spoke in favor of “softening” the front of the new building, while other members suggested a wraparound porch along the side and front of the living and office quarters.
 
“I think we’ve got some work to do, but I think we got good direction tonight. And we aspire to take all of that very seriously,” Deering said.
 
Comments from last week’s meeting will be worked into changes to the design that are expected to be presented at the July 27 session.

 Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com