Following the passage of a $39 million capital bond measure in November 2015, the South King Fire &Rescue board of commissioners is recommending a redirection of $4.8 million of those funds.

Instead of making just less than $5 million in site improvements to property the fire district owns across from fire station 64, the district, instead, wants to purchase new property at 35100 Pacific Highway S., for $3.8 million and use the remaining $1 million for upgrades.

That new property comes with two buildings – a 6,000-square-foot building for a fleet maintenance facility and a 10,000-square-foot building for a logistics/maintenance facility. The land would also give SKFR room for additional facilities in the future.

“It’s actually zoned for, potentially, a fire station in the future,” Assistant Chief Ed Plumlee said. “We’d have to go through the permitting and such, but it has the zoning potential for that, and it’s located in an area that we think is going to be a needed area for our responses in the future as well.”

In the past, fire district officials have pointed to an expected population growth that will occur in the next 10 to 20 years, specifically in the south end of Federal Way, as reasons for expansion.

“It met our short-term and perhaps even longer-term goals of the fleet facilities,” Plumlee said of the land, which used to accommodate United Rentals but is now occupied by Cascade Drilling.

Those long-term goals, however, may take a while to accomplish.

“[There are] no plans to build anything that would require more than what we have, more than what taxpayers have approved,” Plumlee said. “But, this does give us the opportunity down the road to have a potential fire station property. That’s going to be way down the road, I believe.”

Plumlee said improving the fire department’s already-owned 20 acres across from station 64, for which some of the 2015 bond measure funds were initially intended, was simply too cost prohibitive.

The bond was intended to fund a fleet facility and administrative training campus, but the fire district would have had to invest in improvements to the infrastructure of roads, sidewalks and light systems, as well as some civil engineering.

If the department does purchase the lot off of Pacific Highway South, the “campus” property, as Plumlee calls it, will stay as is for a while.

A maintenance shop, which was included in the district’s first attempt to pass its bond, had to be eliminated from the $39 million bond that did pass.

Since the 2015 bond passed, Plumlee said the department has used some of the funds to purchase five aid cars and has an order out for fire engines and an aerial ladder truck.

The new facilities will also undergo a series of remodels, including upgrading the roofs to meet seismic standard, as well as improving the environmental air quality.

“With the types of things firefighters see and the environment they’re in, bunker gear needs to be stored properly. It needs to be washed properly,” Plumlee said.

“They, themselves, need facilities in the truck barriers where they can get off a call and clean up for pathogens-related things.”

About $1-$2 million was also slated for technology upgrades, which included making the fire stations more secure.

On scene, firefighters will have the ability to use a tablet-based reporting system to get an automatic feed from dispatch while on a call. Times are calculated into the tablet and reports are synced and streamlined to a database.

Plumlee said the district commissioners are being careful with what they purchase and are thinking long term so that items can last 20 years.

Because technology advances so quickly, however, he anticipates that to be updated closer to every five to 10 years.

South King Fire &Rescue will hold a public hearing on the bond’s resolution amendment during a special fire commissioners board meeting at 9 a.m. on Wednesday at fire station 68, 1405 S.W. 312th St.

“I hope there’s a lot of people there,” Plumlee said. “It’s tax money, and I think that in terms of re-purposing this money to that property, I think they should be interested, and I think that probably when they hear what we’re going to do, what our plan is, I think they’ll believe it’s a wise expenditure.”

For more information, visit www.southkingfire.org/Calendar.