La Crosse in planning stages for new $6 million fire station

Half a million set aside to buy property for city’s fifth fire station. 

While a new fire station will be the focus of the La Crosse Fire Dept. this year, it won’t be breaking any ground right away.

Fire chief Gregg Cleveland says it will take awhile to figure out even where to put the new station and devise a financial plan for staffing and providing equipment for it.

A new station is estimated to cost $6 million with equipment and personnel costs above that.

“There’s a lot of planning and a lot of number crunching that needs to go into this that we’re going to be focusing on in 2017,” Cleveland said. “We spent probably 3 to 4 years getting to this point right now and we still have a ton of work to go yet.”

The city has four fire stations but none in what has the been the area of largest growth in the city and surrounding areas on the south side.

Finding a site for a new fire station will be the first step Cleveland said.

The city has budgeted $500,000 this year to buy property for a new station on the south side. It would be the first new fire station in the city since 1967.