The Antonia Fire Protection District may have a new station completed by next summer.
The three-member Antonia Fire district’s Board of Directors voted unanimously in a closed Aug. 11 meeting to pay Brockmiller Construction in Farmington $2,727,900 to build a new House 1 at 5530 Old Hwy. 21 in the Otto area. The company submitted the lowest of 11 bids, according to district documents.
Antonia Fire will pay for the new house with money from an $11 million bond issue voters approved in November 2024.
“We are very fortunate with our community approving a bond for us and trusting us to manage that,” Assistant Chief Bobby Chrisco said. “We are building the station in a strategic response area. Hopefully, it will improve our overall operation to serve the community.
“Now that the next big step of groundbreaking is in front of us, it is exciting.”
Chrisco said construction could start as early as Sept. 15, after all permits are approved and materials start being delivered. He also said the house could be completed in early July 2026.
The house will be built on about 2 acres of land near the intersection of Old Hwy. 21 and Hwy. M. Antonia Fire paid $33,572 to the Missouri Department of Transportation in June 2023 to buy the property, using proceeds from its sale of House 1, 3538 Old Hwy. M, in February 2023 for $225,000.
Chrisco said the new House 1 will include about 8,000 square feet, with the building measuring about 7,000 square feet and a mezzanine making up the other approximately 1,000 square feet.
He said the house will have two 70-foot-long bays, and the district plans to house two firetrucks there even though the depth of the bays would allow the district to house up to four trucks there.
“Probably the nicest thing is everything will be on one floor and more modern with an open floor plan,” Chrisco said. “The kitchen will flow into the living room. At the House 2 location, the kitchen is all the way down the hallway from the living room. This station will flow together to where it will be easier for everybody to stay together.”
Chrisco said a Phoenix G2 dispatching system will be installed in the new house, benefiting the district and its residents.
“That dispatches us about 20 to 30 seconds faster with how the information is received and inputted,” he said.
Before Antonia Fire board members went into the Aug. 11 closed meeting, Steven Bacon, an architect with Bacon Commercial Design of Crystal City, discussed the bids the district had received. Antonia Fire hired Bacon Commercial Design to design the new house, and Chrisco said the district had paid the firm about $90,000 as of Aug. 12.
Brockmiller president Colin Rogers and project manager Matt Franklin also addressed the board members before they went into the closed meeting.
“I’m very pleased Brockmiller is in the mix as a low bidder,” Bacon told the board. “We have had a very good relationship, architect to contractors. We have worked on dozens of projects, and we have dealt with each other very well.”
Chrisco said the board members went into a closed meeting to discuss all the contracts in greater detail, adding that the board voted to award the construction in the closed session, which lasted about 10 minutes, instead of in an open meeting, because the members lost track of when they were voting.
“They wanted to make sure it (Brockmiller’s bid) was the best option for the money we are spending,” Chrisco said. “With the amount of jockeying around and things that needed to be accomplished, they probably lost track of where they were at in placement of the meeting.”
After the new House 1 is constructed, Chrisco said Antonia Fire will no longer staff House 3, 7138 Old Hwy. 21, and will either sell or use that house for storage.
Bond
Chrisco said Antonia Fire sold $5 million worth of bonds in January to cover the cost of building the new house, along with paying for renovations at House 2, 6633 Moss Hollow Road, in Barnhart and a firetruck that was ordered last year and expected to be delivered in summer 2026.
“There are rules for when that money has to be spent on capital projects,” he said of the first round of bonds. “We picked projects that are of the greatest importance and can be accomplished soon. The money has to be spent in three years.”
Chrisco said the district has spent about $742,000 of the bond money it received. Along with the architect fees, he said Antonia Fire made a $150,000 down payment on a new firetruck, spent approximately $100,000 on bond closing costs and legal fees, paid about $16,000 for advanced water rescue gear, spent approximately $120,000 for two new staff vehicles and spent about $266,000 for renovation work at House 2.
Of that $266,000 for renovations at House 2, $137,000 was spent to replace the sprinkler system, approximately $80,000 to replace the house’s garage doors and $49,000 to renovate the bunk rooms, which included reworking the beds’ frames and cabinetry and replacing the faceplates covering the frames, he said.
“Almost everything we are doing is done with the intention of longevity, safety, cleanliness or being more effective,” he said. “We are not doing anything crazy. It is all practical and to last a long time.”
Chrisco said the new firetruck will cost about $1.1 million, adding that the last firetruck Antonia Fire purchased was in 2017, and it cost approximately $550,000.
Chrisco said Antonia Fire will pay for the new firetruck with money from the bond issue and a $100,000 Diesel Emissions Reduction Act grant.
He said the new truck will allow the district to move the 2017 truck into a reserve role, and Antonia Fire will retire a 2003 American LaFrance model.
“It breaks down frequently,” he said of the 2003 truck. “American LaFrance is out of business, and it is hard to get parts for it.
“Instead of having a firetruck we are milking along, we will have a perfectly good engine in reserve.”
Chrisco said when the district sells a second round of bonds, the money will be used to repair the parking lot at House 2 and likely purchase another new firetruck.
“Over the last 20 years, we have repaired things, but we haven’t done a lot of proactive work as far as building maintenance because the money wasn’t there,” he said. “To have money allocated to get things where they should be is exciting.”