Zen T.C. Zheng wrote
Houston Chronicle- Fort Bend
Fort Bend County’s emergency medical services will have a new home this fall with the headquarters’ construction started Feb. 8.
The project, part of a $130 million facility-bond package voters approved in May 2006, will cost about $900,000 less than the $3 million previously earmarked because the new fire marshal’s office is no longer included in the building plan.
The new fire marshal’s office is housed in the George Gus Law Enforcement Academy building just opened on county-owned 40-acre tract across from the county jail in Richmond.
Don Brady, the county’s director of facilities management and planning, expects the EMS project to be completed as early as in August.
"We decided to change the plan because the fire marshal’s office is an enforcement agency and we want it separate from EMS, which is a nonenforcement agency," he said.
The new EMS building is being constructed at 4336 Texas 36 in Rosenberg, sharing the same site with its existing headquarters, a metal structure that also houses the county’s bill collection office.
The collection division will be moved to the Travis Building in Richmond when all courts housed at that building are moved to the county’s courthouse complex, dubbed the justice center, which is being built on the same 40-acre site.
When the EMS headquarters are relocated to the new building, the existing metal structure would either be demolished or continue to be used by the county parks department and the fairgrounds for offices and storage.
The metal building has insufficient supply storage room and a cramped administrative office. Nor is it strong enough to withstand a major hurricane, officials said.
"We are moving the EMS into a hardened building so they can maintain a presence there through a storm," Brady said.
The single-story, 14,200-square-foot building also will include a large classroom, storage for supplies and equipment, spaces for ambulances and emergency-response trailers, a shower facility and dorms to allow the headquarters to be manned around the clock.
"It will have a lot of things missing from the current building," Brady said.
Rosenberg-based Bass Construction, which built three county buildings on the 40-acre site — the Precinct 1 office building, new tax office building and the Gus George Law Enforcement Academy, is the contractor for the EMS project.
