KZF Design knew it had a challenge in designing and building a new headquarters, Station 41, for the Lebanon (OH) Fire Department, but also knew that its staff was up to the task of satisfying the fire department and city with the endresult.
Scott Csendes, vice president and director of the civic and public safety group for KZF Design, says the department wanted the new station to mirror the design and architectural features of the town’s historic downtown area. “Lebanon’s first fire station was made for horses and carriages,” Csendes observes. “Then the department purchased an old laundromat and converted it to a headquarters station that they had for many years but, after a while, the station began to have a number ofissues.”
Lebanon is the county seat of Warren County, Csendes points out. “The station is in the city’s historic downtown where there are a lot of restaurants, microbreweries, and antique shops that draw a lot of people,” he notes. “It’s a thriving area that is the north gateway to the downtown area, so they wanted the new station to have the visual feel of thedowntown.”
Csendes says the department wanted the new station to embrace the look of the downtown city hall, library, and courthouse, so his design team took elements from those buildings and incorporated them into the new headquarters station. “We put in gables and flat arches over the apparatus bay doors and incorporated a tower element into the station that echoes the courthouse building,” he notes. “There also are gable elements over the apparatus bays that are inspired by the cityhall.”
The station was built during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which construction prices dropped, allowing the project to come in $500,000 under budget, Csendes says. “We were able to add a fourth apparatus bay, under-slab heating in the station, and to extend the slab outside the station,” he points out. “We also were able to put fast-opening bifold doors on the front exit side of the apparatus bays and roll-up doors on the rear of thebays.”
1 The Lebanon (OH) Fire Department’s headquarters fire station was designed and built by KZF Design. (Photos courtesy of KZF Design.)
2 The station came in $500,000 under budget, allowing the department to add a fourth bay to the station and add under-slab heating.
3 The front exit doors of Lebanon Fire Station 41 have fast-opening bifold doors.
4 KZF incorporated natural light in the new station, as shown in the kitchen/dining/day room area.
5 A training mezzanine was built into the station where firefighters can conduct bailout drills, rappelling and rope rescue work, and hose advancement and ladder training.
He notes that the decon room, turnout gear room, and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) room off the bays have direct ventilation systems to the outside air to avoid contamination inside the station. “The mezzanine above that area holds the mechanical area and a training area over the turnout gear room and the SCBA room where firefighters can conduct bailout drills, rappelling work, ladder training, and put in door props that they can take apart and then renew for another evolution,” Csendessays.
Csendes adds that the new station features four drive-though, double-deep apparatus bays, heated floors, and gender-neutral sleeping areas. Inside the living area are eight individual dorm rooms, a lieutenant’s dorm, and a battalion chief’s dorm, he says. Three two-sided lockers are affixed on the exterior wall of the hallway around the dorms, and there is an adjacent locker area for those firefighters coming to work from another fire station. Adjacent to the dorms, there are three unisex toilet/shower/bathroomfacilities.
Also in the firefighter living area are a kitchen, dining room, day room, and fitness room, Csendes notes. “All access to the station is controlled with keycards,” he points out. “After 5 pm, all doors are locked, and the alarm system controls access to various parts of thestation.”
The administrative section of the headquarters station has a chief’s office, administrative office, battalion chief’s office, three additional offices, a large conference room, and a work room. There’s a training room that is used by both firefighters and the public, Csendes points out. “It has separate exterior doors leading to a lobby area, which can be sealed off from the rest of the fire station,” he says. “It has a public restroom available as well as a small kitchen and servingarea.”
Csendes says that KZF Design used three-dimensional (3D) virtual reality (VR) software in the design of Lebanon Station 41. “Because of the visual of the exterior of the building and the robust nature of the training elements in the station, we did a lot of 3D renderings for the fire department,” he notes. “With the 3D modeling, we were able to show them a walk-through of all the interior spaces; the natural light in the day room, kitchen, and dining areas, where there are lot of windows facing north; and how the other spaces looked and felt through 3DVR.”
Csendes continues, “Before they decided on some choices, we were able to show them the built-in cabinets along the walls and how they would look, then we dropped in images of furniture and brought the 3D images to a real station for their review. We also spent time on the training mezzanine to show them how near each firefighter would be in terms of working space when they were actually using themezzanine.”
Another interesting element in the Lebanon Fire Department Station 41 structure is that the turnout gear room is designed as a tornado shelter, Csendes says. “We reinforced the walls and upgraded the walls with four-point locking mechanisms that can withstand 200-mile-per-hour winds,” hesays.
ALAN M.PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist, the author of three novels and five nonfiction books, and a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.
