Architect Presents Setauket Firehouse Options to Community

The discussion of the future of the Main Street firehouse in East Setauket continued Monday with a presentation of four different concepts at a meeting of the Setauket Fire District's community building committee.

At the heart of the discussion was the placement of the apparatus bays, which in each concept was conceived as four double-wide bays that can accommodate between eight and 10 emergency vehicles.

The challenge is to place them in such a way that the slope of the property – which varies by 17 feet along Main Street and 15 feet heading south along Old Town Road – is taken into consideration. Emergency response times and the placement along Main Street for visibility of vehicles leaving the station are also major considerations in the positioning of the apparatus bays.

"[It is] the most critical component to the layout," said architect Danny Tanzi, of the firm H2M. "It becomes the first piece of the puzzle we need to plug in."

Tanzi stressed that the four concepts are still very preliminary ideas. In the photos above, the apparatus bays are given in red areas; the bunk room and ready room are given in blue; and the administrative and meeting areas are given in orange and yellow.

Local resident John Cunniffe, an architect who has done pro bono work for the Setauket Fire District, said he was concerned about massing – a term used to denote the portion of the building that directly faces the street.

"It would be really detrimental … to reduce the amount of building footage on Main Street," he said. "I’d rather have more building and have it closer to Main Street."

Fire commissioner Paul DiBiase said: "There’s no way I’m going to support a new firehouse with the bays the way they are on 25A."

Tanzi said if an idea does not yield a safe response path for the fire trucks, then it won't be investigated further. 

"In any of the schemes that we would develop, the firematic response is going to be primary. ... The broader that we can keep this dimension to the east side of the building, the more likely it’s going to be a safe response path," he said.

Fire district attorney Howard Bergson said some consideration has to be given to the cost of the project.

"If you don’t have a concept that you can propose at a reasonable cost, then we have no concept at all," he said.

The next step in the process includes meeting with the board of fire commissioners to narrow down the concepts based on the community's feedback, and developing potential floor plans based on the concept or concepts that emerge as the ideal ones. Tanzi said H2M will be developing two sets of plans, one that involves renovating the existing structure and another that involves building an entirely new structure.

Residents interested in commenting on the building process can email feedback to HQBuilding@setauketfd.com.