The District is in the process of designing the future development of the Fire Station 1 property. The development of the site will include a new fire station, a training facility, and an administration building which will include office space for both administration and fire prevention staff, storage of equipment and supplies, and a new classroom/board room/District Operations Center. 

In 2012, the District hired CH2M Hill to evaluate the District’s facilities.  Fire Station 1, which was constructed in 1955, was listed in fair condition and identified as having an original life expectancy of 35 years. The station has ongoing issues with water penetration. A new fire station is needed to address ongoing maintenance issues, as well as space needs issues and to incorporate smart alerting and safety improvements, such as having driven-through capability. In 2021, the District had the training tower evaluated by MLA Structural Engineers, Inc. which identified that the tower is unsafe in its current condition due to dry rot and would require a seismic retrofit. The training tower is a critical component of the District’s safety personnel training program. The construction of a new, multi-story tower will allow the Fire District to properly train and prepare staff for the challenges and difficulties experienced in multi-story structures and other environments.  Challenges associated with multi-story structures include proper search and rescue techniques, advancement of hose lines aloft, other physical difficulties, and technical fire ground operations. In addition, a newly designed multi-story training tower with a sub-surface basement is needed to adequately prepare firefighters for the challenges faced in certain types of emergencies. 

In 2022, the District was notified by PG&E that PG&E may in the future expand its operations at the District’s training site located at the PG&E substation adjacent to Highway 84. The proposed expansion would reduce the District’s training capabilities at this location in half.  The District proposes constructing a new training facility at Fire Station 1 to address the structural concerns of the existing training tower and the potential loss of training functions at the PG&E substation.

The development of the site will also include office space for administration and fire prevention staff along with a new classroom/board room/District Operations Center, a storage building, and underground parking. The District has outgrown the office space at 170 Middlefield Road and 114 Santa Margarita and additional office space is needed to accommodate existing and future staffing.  In June 2024 the Board of Directors approved the project which is estimated at $121 million.  The project is estimated to be completed by March 2032.  Upon completion of the project and relocation of staff, the properties at 170 Middlefield road and 114 Santa Margarita avenue can be repurposed or sold.

In January 2025, the District had Telecommunications Engineering Associates (TEA), the District’s fire station alerting vendor conduct a comprehensive review of the District’s fire station alerting systems to determine vulnerabilities in its infrastructure and to identify equipment which was previously installed in 2015 that needs replacement to ensure serviceability and reliability.  TEA identified several components of the alerting system that are recommended to be replaced due to their age including the firewall, power supplies, panel computers, and radios.   The replacement of this equipment is expected to be completed in 2026.