GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — As your Grand Rapids reporter, I’ve told you about the fire department's push to modernize its facilities.
Soon, the newest station in decades will open, but this building will still hold a little bit of history.
Kendall Fire Station is located on the city’s southeast side on Kalamazoo Ave.
Crews are finalizing the details on GRFD's newest station.
“For the longest time, it was just drawings on paper,” Captain Jeff Lysiak said. “Something unique about this place is that there are individual dorm rooms now, and we no longer have a large communal dorm. So dorms are not real big.”
Kendall’s station comes with all the modern bells and whistles, including new furniture, a kitchen, and equipment. However, not everything is new inside these walls.
“This table right here is going to be the conference table at the new Kendall fire station,” Lysiak said.
The wood comes from a white oak that was on this lot before the station was built.
Lysiak says he thinks the tree is somewhere around 140 years old.
The captain has been with the department for more than three decades, and he’s working to get this table ready.
“We’re just about done. We're going to sand off the rest of this epoxy, sand everything good, and then add a finish to it, and then it'll be ready to set on some bases,” Lysiak said.
This base is set to be the spot for future discussions.
“100 years ago, a group of people very similar to ourselves sat around a table and talked about this modern fire station that we're just getting ready to start building,” Lysiak said. “Here we are, 100 years later, doing the exact same thing, and now we're going to build a modern fire station. So kind of neat.”
The fire department plans to open this station later this month.
