Fire Station 38 Groundbreaking Tomorrow

Groundbreaking for Fire Station 38 , which serves Laurelhurst, among other neighborhoods, is tomorrow at 12:00 noon, at 4004 NE 55th Street, the northeast corner of 40th Avenue NE and NE 55th Street. Mayor Nickels will be on hand for the ceremony.

In January 2006 the City Council authorized the purchase of the site located at 40th Avenue NE and NE 55th Street for the new fire station. The current site in Bryant has been deemed too small.

Many neighbors remember this as the always busy auto repair shop and balloon shop - Recchi's Quality Auto Service garage and Catanzaro's Airmazing Balloon Creations - which before they were demolished had various contentious signs remaining about how the property was sold.

A staffer dug deeper into the history of this site, and found an October 2005 article in the Seattle P-I reporting "For more than a decade, Steve Recchi and his crew have dug into the guts of every kind of car there is at a corner auto shop near Sand Point Way Northeast. For almost as long, Marci Catanzaro has crafted enormous balloon art from her shop right next door."

The Times article goes on to say "In February, city officials contacted Sally Strickland, the owner of the property, to tell her they wanted the land.

"I told them I didn't want to sell it," Strickland said.

Strickland's father-in-law bought most of the land in 1946, and added to it in 1961. It has been in the family as it is since then.

The rents she earns on the property are what she plans to retire on, Strickland said, and she had planned to place it in a trust for her children upon her death.

Those plans have been dashed by this new development, she said. "The city appears committed to this piece of land."

According to the P-I article several community meetings were held as plans were underway.

City officials looked at about a dozen sites and "said the land met several criteria they were looking for: It was on a major arterial, which makes for a speedy exit; it's close to the original station so response times won't change much; and it's big enough to allow for a larger fire station, though not a three-story one, as has been rumored."

Some history on the current station in Bryant - it was built in 1930 and houses one engine company as well as a reserve engine.

This station was deemed to small "to accommodate the operations required to support modern emergency response. The historic character and site configuration rule out expanding the existing station to the size needed," according to the City of Seattle Website.

Interesting to note that the existing station was granted landmark status in 2004 with submittal of this landmark nomination report. Once the new station has been built, the City will sell the historic building and then put the money back into the Levy program.

The new station will continue to house one engine company and a reserve engine, and will be built on the northeast corner of 40th Avenue NE and NE 55th Street. Crews will remain in the current firestation until the new one is built.


Current Fire Station



Picture of Steve Recchi, owner of Quality Auto Service in the Hawthorne neighborhood, "fears he won't be able to find a comparable site if he's forced to move his business to make way for a fire station" as documented in the Seattle P-I in October 2005