At their regular monthly meeting last week, Tantramar council approved spending $67,000 on a consultant to take the next steps on building a new fire hall in Dorchester. The decision moves Tantramar forward on a long process started by the village of Dorchester years ago to replace the current 77-year old building.
In January 2021, the former village spent $100,000 on two lots on Cape Road for the new fire hall. This latest decision will see Catalyst Consulting Engineers take on coordination of a geotechnical investigation, a net zero analysis, putting together an RFP to find a design consultant, and other negotiations with “third party stakeholders.”
Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne is the former CAO of the village of Dorchester, and spoke with CHMA last week about the project. She said the replacement of the current fire hall has been talked about for years:
“We certainly got our use out of it,” says Borne. “But certainly [it is] time for a new facility, well-deserving of all of Tantramar, of Dorchester specifically, and certainly the members of Dorchester Fire as well as really all members of Tantramar Fire Service.”
Dorchester Fire Chief Greg Partridge says the current facility was built in 1947 and has been expanded on twice since. Even so, says Partridge, “we’ve outgrown that years ago, and have been wanting a new hall, and needing a new hall for quite some time.”
The decision to hire Catalyst Consulting did not go through a public tendering process because it is under the threshold requiring that process, says Borne. Catalyst was approached based on “a strong rapport” with the former town of Sackville, says Borne. “As some may recall, he was the consultant for the town hall facility.”
Borne says the net zero analysis is taking place to make sure the project is positioned to possibly take advantage of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Municipal Fund, which among other things, gives grants and loans towards construction of new, low-carbon municipally-owned buildings.
The new building will likely also include what Borne calls “a flexible space” to serve as an as-needed municipal office in Dorchester. The former office at the centre of the village has been closed since February 2023 due to mould in the building. Borne says the town is still waiting on the final remediation study for the building, which it plans to evaluate for a possible future location for the Dorchester Public Library.
Borne says that she expects a three to six month timeline for this phase of work, “and hopefully in the fall, we would have design concepts from an architect,” says Borne. She says the target is to open doors on the new Dorchester Fire facility sometime in 2026.
