The City of Hamilton recently held an official groundbreaking at 20 Parkside Drive in Waterdown for a new joint police and fire station.
The 43,000 square foot combined building will host Fire Station 29 and Police Station 40.
The joint station will also include a collision reporting centre, a 911 call centre, a joint fire and police dispatch centre, and a training facility.
The city says that the facility will “improve emergency response times, modernize services, and enhance community safety.”
Construction is expected to take two years with the opening set for August 2027.
The city says that the location also has an “environmentally sustainable building design” and will offer “improved access to public safety services.”
The building is located close to the Parkside Drive and Highway 6 intersection near Clappison’s Corners where more than a dozen residential towers, as well as townhouses, are planned and in an area that could soon be home to more than 10,000 new residents.
The development is part of a master planned residential community called iConnect.
Waterdown has been one of Hamilton’s fastest growing communities.
The current fire station in Waterdown is at 256 Parkside Drive near the Hamilton Street North intersection.
Volunteer firefighters will continue to operate out of that station as will Hamilton paramedics.
As for police services, Waterdown residents and the surrounding area are currently served by the Division 3 station on Rymal Road on Hamilton Mountain, which is almost 25 kilometres away.
The new police station will be home to a new police division with 40 officers.
When the project was put forward back in 2020, it was meant to cost $17.5 million and have one floor with 23,000 square feet.
In 2024, after the pandemic, costs then ballooned to $28 million for the same project.
Earlier this year, Council approved the expansion of the original scope, adding a second floor, 911 call centre, and mechanical penthouse (a rooftop structure that houses essential mechanical, electrical, and plumbing equipment.)
With the expansion, costs for the building now come out to approximately $48 million.
Those costs include construction, technology, uninterrupted power supply, dispatcher consoles, furniture costs, and soft costs.
Land acquisition costs for the project were an additional $6.5 million.
The second floor call centre was added on since staff say the Hamilton Police Central Station at 155 King William Street is approaching “end of life” and will “only be viable as a temporary backup 911 call centre location.”
There were plans to renovate the Stoney Creek Municipal Service Centre at Highway 8 and Jones Road for a call centre, but the city says that those plans are “no longer feasible at that site.”
The city retained Salter Pilon Architecture Inc. for the facility design and Percon Construction Inc. as the builder.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
