After more than two years of searching, the Central Jackson Fire Protection District has finally found a home for their training and maintenance facility.

Located at 4715 W. U.S. 40, the new training and maintenance facility will replace the district’s current building off the outer road in Grain Valley. The building is currently the home of A2MG Inc., a light industrial business that manufactures architectural metal and glass.

The 60,000 square-foot facility will house eight offices, four bay areas for all district vehicle repairs and general mainteance and a large warehouse that will help with storage.

“It will not be a fire station, but there may be an engine there,” said assistant chief Todd Farley.

The deal, reached within the last couple of weeks, concludes what began as a promise to district taxpayers back in 2006. At that time, the district requested passage of a $6.5 million bond issue, the revenue from which the district would use to pay for equipment and vehicles, as well as the purchase of land and construction materials for a new facility.

Guess again.

“We found pretty quickly how expensive the land was,” Todd Farley, assistant chief, said. “We devoted a lot of energy and a lot of time looking for areas that were in a good location and at the price we wanted.”

Earlier this year, the district located one piece of property, a 22-acre area priced at about $1.2 million. That’s about average, both Farley and city leaders will tell you. To expand the city’s park services, the city recently purchased about 101 acres for $2.6 million, though the land was appraised at about $3 million.

District officials originally thought they could buy land and build the facility for about $4 million, but costs have increased, Farley said. In addition to the 2006 bond levy money, the district recently used a no-tax-increase bond issue to complete funding for the new facility.

In total, the U.S. 40 facility will cost the district $5.5 million — $3.8 million for the building and seven acres and $1.5 million for renovation costs.

Farley said he expects the facility to be in operation within one year.

The new facility will give the district the opportunity to increase its paramedic training. In 2007, the district generated $105,720 in EMS training revenue. Farley said the district expects to generate about $150,000 next year, an increase due, in part, to the new facility. 

“There’s a growth to the paramedic training,” Farley said. “And this new facility will help with that. We offer a lot of training to more than fire personnel.”

The district also plans to sell the current training and maintenance facility in Grain Valley and use the money to build a training tower. Such a tower could assist with fire training, Farley said, by lighting actual fires.