The Big River Ambulance District will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 25, to mark the start of construction on its new House 1.
The house will be built on property next to the current House 1 at 6327 Lorens Lane in Cedar Hill.
Chief Scott Fisher said construction on the new house is expected to be finished in January 2025.
Construction had been expected to start this past spring.
“We’re a little behind (schedule), but we had a holdup with the plan. We had to move the house on the property,” Fisher said.
He said the 9,700-square-foot building will have space to house up to two, two-person crews.
“We’ll have four admin people in the offices,” Fisher added. “It will have three bays and house two ambulances in those two bays, and the duty vehicle.”
It will cost $4,839,066 to construct the new house, and the district will use funds from Proposition Safety, a $17 million bond issue voters approved in August 2022, to pay for the building.
The bond issue also funded the purchase of a new Dodge ambulance for $283,140 in January.
Fisher said Wachter Inc. in Arnold was hired to build the new House 1.
He said the current House 1 will be used for storage once crews move to the new building.
Fisher said the new building is badly needed.
“The house we’ve been in is almost 50 years old,” he said. “We’ve kind of outgrown it. There’s no room on this property to expand (the current) house.”
Fisher said the groundbreaking ceremony is open to the public.
“We’re really excited about this,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming for the district. That was one of the big pushes to get the bond issue passed, mainly for the safety of the employees.”
The district covers about 125 square miles in House Springs, Cedar Hill, Morse Mill, Dittmer, Ware, Grubville and Byrnes Mill. The district has two other houses – one at 4795 Tishomingo Road in the Hillsboro area and the other at 6969 Wild Cherry Drive in House Springs.