The police and fire safety crews of one of America’s safest college towns recently got word of where their new station is to be constructed in the near future.

1. Madi Nolte
Missourian Reporter
The police and fire safety crews of one of America’s safest college towns recently got
word of where their new station is to be constructed in the near future.
Following a city council meeting Sept. 26, City Manager Greg McDanel announced the
city has tentatively reached an agreement to purchase 1.8 acres of land at the intersection of
First and Vine to serve as the site for Maryville’s future police headquarters and fire station.
McDanel said the price is still undisclosed but the project’s financing will come from the
renewable half-cent capital improvement sales tax passed by voters in April.
The vacant lot planned to house the future station is owned by the Maryville R-II School
District. It is about two blocks from the current facility and was the former location of Washington
Elementary School. McDanel said it has not been purchased yet but is under contract.
The city’s current facility is a 1960s era grocery store, remodeled in the early 1970s and
has housed the city’s law enforcement and fire services staff since 1976. McDanel and Public
Safety Director Keith Wood agree the biggest reason for a new station is simply need for more
space.
“We have long since outgrown this building,” Wood said. “This building wasn’t designed
for modern day police and fire services to operate out of.”
McDanel said the facility is severely outdated and inadequate for today’s law
enforcement and firefighting needs. It lacks today’s standards for security, evidence collection
and storage, interrogation and detective work. The fire station is extremely crowded due to the
ever-growing size of fire trucks.
According to Wood, rather than putting more money into the building and still have an
old one, it was time for a needs assessment to determine what the specific needs of the building
were and whether a new one was needed.
“The results were we needed a new one (building) three times the size of this one,”
Wood said.
The new station will be about 24,000 square feet, compared to the current 8,500 square
feet.
The new fire bay will be almost the size of the entire current building, according to Wood.
It will feature pull-through fire bays that are standard in today’s public safety buildings. Wood
sees this as an added safety feature.
“Our (fire) apparatus is very crowded. Right now, it’s back in, at a little bit of an incline,”
Wood said. “Over the course of the years, there’s been multiple times we’ve had trucks banged
up as a result of just going in and out.”
According to Wood, the building is extremely poor when it comes to investigative
purposes.
“It isn’t unusual for us to be investigating one or more incidents at a time,” Wood said.
“We’ve got witnesses, victims and suspects all needing to be shuffled and kept separate in most
cases. With the current setup of the building, it is not always possible to transport these
individuals throughout the building without a witness having to cross paths with a suspect in the
hallway.”

2. Additional features of the new station will include more secured entry points and access
to the building, more technologically-friendly components, as well as the hopes for a public
meeting room. Wood said the building will be built based on a 30-year projected growth, so the
community can grow into it.
McDanel hopes to have a contractor hired within six months and for them to be turning
dirt in April of 2018. He looks for construction to take about a year, ballparking the price to be
anywhere from three to four million dollars.
“This will really reward our staff, the hard working men and women, with a facility that
aligns with their efforts,” McDanel said. “We’ll be able to provide better services to the
community and train more efficiently. Equipment will be able to be properly stored so it won’t
have to be replaced as often. This will save major tax dollars in the long run.”
The question still remains how the public safety of one of the safest college towns in
America has been able to operate out of a station only a third of the size it needs for the past 40
years.
“I’d like to think we do a lot with a little,” Wood said.
Wood said he thinks it will be rewarding to help participate in this process.
“One of my objectives, when I moved here, was to leave it in a better condition than I
found it,” Wood said. “I think that this building will definitely be the cherry on top of the sundae in
terms of leaving it a better place.”
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