A contract with Brown Reynolds Watford to begin designing and planning a new Brownwood Central Fire Station was unanimously approved by the Brownwood City Council Monday.

Preliminary cost from the architectural firm is estimated to be $2,950,000 to build the new fire station.  A committee made up of city councilmen Carl McMillan and H. D. Jones along with Brownwood Fire Chief Del Albright and Jim Steward of developmental services and City Manager Bobby Rountree interviewed four firms for the design of the Central Fire Station.  The four firms considered were Wiginton Jeffry of Plano, Huckabee of Georgetown /Stewart Cooper Newell of Gastonia, North Carolina, Jim Wilson of McKinney, and Brown Reynolds Watford (BRW) of College Station.

According to Rountree, the committee received “rave reviews” from other fire chiefs across the state on the work of BRW.  The cost of the design work will be a lump sum cost of $304,200.  BRW specializes in fire station design and has assembled a five member team for the Brownwood project.

“This particular team has worked together on 27 fire stations in past 5 years and the company has designed over 82 fire stations in Texas,” stated Rountree.  “Nothing but high marks were received from reference checks (of BRW).”

BRW’s services during the design project will include:  Architectural design and documentation including site analysis and site selection help; necessary civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering design with estimates of probable costs at the various design phases; preparation of contract documents for bidding and construction; assistance with bidding and evaluation of bids; contract administration with at least monthly site visits to review contractor’s progress and pay application.

According to Rountree, the process will take approximately 20 weeks for the design to be completed, 4 weeks for the bid process, and 10 months to construct the Central Fire Station.

“This same company just designed and bid a station in Stephenville which is pretty much exactly what we are looking at here, a 15,000 square foot facility,” said Rountree.  “Their bids, they have 14 bidders, and the low bid came in at about $2.5 million in a range up to about $3.3 million.  So we feel pretty confident that they can bring us within that range, they also will bring other bidders to the table for our project that often bid their projects for them.”

The project will be funded from certificates of obligation that were approved by city council on May 22, 2012 for capital projects to improve city facilities and infrastructure.  These projects include the Central Fire Station construction and land acquisition, street reconstruction, irrigation for the Bert Massey Sports Complex, and the waste water treatment plant.