June 27, 1991

Ground broken for White River fire station

       Construction is to begin in the next few days on a long-awaited fire station in White River Township.  Members of the White River Township Fire Department broke ground Wednesday night for the station, which will be located at the western edge of Meridian Parke Shopping Center on Fairview Road. The groundbreaking caps off a two-year effort to find a site for the station in the northeastern part of the township.  In 1989, the department planned to purchase the William Schreckengast farm at 3780 W. Fairview Road and convert a house and barn to a fire station and living quarters.  But neighbors opposed the plan, and the Johnson County Board of Zoning Appeals rejected the fire department’s request for a zoning variance that was needed to build the station.  A year later, the department purchased the site at Meridian Parke.  But arranging financing for the project created more delays.  “It’s been a long, hard road,” said firefighter Scott Cassin, the building chairman, during Wednesday’s program. “But we finally got a site picked out, and it’s here.”  The building will include three bays for fire apparatus, as well as living quarters for as many as eight people. “It’s a state-of-the-art design,” said Dan Cartwright of the Wilson-Blazek Corp., the general contractor for the project. “It’s going to be one of the nicest stations around here for efficiency and comfort.”  Cartwright and Sid Blazek, co-owners of the Indianapolis firm, attended Wednesday’s groundbreaking. Their company has built about 20 fire stations, including Greenwood’s Station 3 on Stop 18 Road.  Cartwright said the new White River station should be ready for use around Nov. 1.  The total cost will be about $500,000, including $200,000 for the purchase of the land and $300,000 for construction of the building.  In addition to the fire department, the building also will house a substation of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Doran Miller said he expects to sign a contract with the fire department within a week for the substation.  Under that agreement, the fire department will provide the space, and the Sheriff’s Department will take over dispatching for the fire department. The substation will have a fax machine so paper work can be transferred between White River and the sheriff’s office in Franklin. And sheriff’s deputies working in the White River area will be able to use the substation as their base rather than having to drive to and from Franklin.  “I think it will be a good deal for both of us,” Miller said.  For now, the new fire station will supplement the current station on Runyon Road. But the fire department’s master plan calls for construction of two more stations over the next 10 years, and Allanson said the Runyon Road station probably will be phased out once all three new ones are completed.  The Meridian Parke site is inside the Greenwood city limits.  But it lies within the boundaries of the White River Township Fire Protection District, rather than Greenwood’s jurisdiction, because the fire district was established before Greenwood annexed the land.  Greenwood Fire Chief Paul Kite had complained last year that the new White River site is a poor location because it is only 1½ miles away from a Greenwood station.  But Allanson said the Meridian Parke site is a good location because of rapid growth in that area. “It’s a good location for our area, irrespective of (Greenwood’s) area.  My responsibility is to provide the best fire protection possible in the area we cover.”    (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

      

     
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