Firehouse Not Up to Snuff, Officials Say

It’s apparently going to take more than a call to 911 to snuff out the smoldering dispute over a new $6-million fire station in West Hollywood.

Angry city leaders complain that the unfinished firehouse is years behind schedule, millions of dollars over budget and so poorly designed that some firetrucks can’t make a right turn out of its driveway.

As a result, West Hollywood officials say, they may end their $6.3-million annual contract for service from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and seek fire protection elsewhere--from the Beverly Hills or Los Angeles city departments or by creating their own department.

They also say they plan to sue the county for the $2 million the city gave to expedite construction of the station seven years ago.

Fire officials deny the city’s allegations, asserting that they have spent $4 million in county funds to build the station to West Hollywood’s finicky specifications. But they say they will be glad to help the city find somebody new to fight its fires if that’s what the city wants.

The center of the controversy is a two-story station under construction at the hilly corner of San Vicente Boulevard and Cynthia Street.

Originally budgeted at $4 million and scheduled to be finished by early 1998, the station is earmarked as a replacement for a 76-year-old, brick, one-truck station a few blocks away. The new Station 7 is an eye-catching, redwood and glass-trimmed structure that can hold six fire engines.

While city leaders like the look of the new station, they say the county stumbled when overseeing work of the designers and construction crews.

They contend that the slide poles connecting firefighters’ upstairs quarters with the firetruck bay were installed in the path of overhead garage doors. They say luxury appliances in the kitchen have driven up the cost--even though the station has what city documents characterize as unusable living spaces for firefighters.

Fire officials say the city shares the blame for the delays and the cost overruns. They assert that West Hollywood demanded a fancy, showplace fire station on a difficult, sloping site with such unusual touches as a copper roof and underground parking for firemen’s personal cars.

Firefighters grumble that the design of the subterranean garage has left the station floor with a permanent tilt that could send fire engines accidentally rolling into San Vicente Boulevard unless special wheel blocks are used every time trucks pull into the station.

Both sides agree that what started out as a joint venture has left them feeling badly burned.

“This is the county’s Belmont,” said City Councilman Steve Martin, referring to the now-abandoned, partly built Los Angeles high school.

“It’s just tragic this project has ended the way it has,” added Paul Arevalo, West Hollywood’s interim city manager.

“There are major design flaws: The station opens at an angle into a major intersection, firetrucks can’t turn right from it onto Cynthia Street, they have bathrooms you literally have to stand on the toilet seat to close the door--it’s that tight a squeeze,” he said.

Some of the desks in the firefighters’ quarters are only three inches deep; some personal lockers are a mere six inches wide, Arevalo said.

Fire officials deny that luxurious appliances were purchased. And they say the improperly positioned fire poles were removed and a replacement pole was poked through the ceiling in another room near the firetrucks.

The other design problems will be ironed out before the station opens by its mid-May target date, County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman promised Friday.

Freeman said the station exit driveway will be redesigned to allow for easy turns by all of the county’s trucks. Vehicles now assigned to the West Hollywood area already are able to make the sharp turn east on Cynthia, he said.

According to Freeman, rainy weather delayed the project at its start. He said the county, not West Hollywood, is footing the bill for all cost overruns, even though some costs are the city’s fault.

“The glass storefront windows, the all-glass apparatus windows, the redwood trim, the balcony artwork were requested by the city,” he said.

This week the county Fire Department took steps to terminate its dealings with the station’s contractor and asked county supervisors for another $600,000 to hire a new crew to finish the work.

To the relief of firefighters who may soon be moving into the place, fire officials also disclosed they will hire professional window washers to clean the glitzy expanse of second-story windows in the showplace station.

And if West Hollywood follows through with its threat use to another fire department, Freeman joked, maybe “Beverly Hills can bear that expense.”