State says Auburn’s new $10 million public-safety building is complete

AUBURN, N.Y. — Crews have completed a $10 million project for a new shared public-safety building in Auburn.

Funded in part through Auburn’s 2018 win in the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), the nearly 30,000-square-foot building will house the City of Auburn Fire Department and the Cayuga County Emergency Operations Center.

The shared space provides emergency responders with “modern” amenities and equipment in Auburn’s downtown, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

The project site is located at 31 Seminary St., which sits at the intersection of Seminary Street and Nelson Street in the City of Auburn.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) climate smart communities grant program provided the project $2 million, and the New York State Department of State granted $1.2 million as part of the DRI, Hochul’s office said.

Hueber-Breuer Construction Company, Inc. of Syracuse served as the construction administration and management firm for this project, and Bivens + Associates Architects of Syracuse handled the design work, according to the City of Auburn website.

The project included fully renovating a 17,800-square-foot vacant urban strip mall and adding a newly constructed 11,800-square-foot apparatus bay to house Auburn Fire Department apparatus, safety equipment, training, and medical supplies and decontamination areas for firefighters.

The City of Auburn and Cayuga County have a joint resolution supporting the county’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) operating from the new fire station. The new EOC will serve as a public-safety classroom for city and county police and emergency-management agencies on a day-to-day basis, per Hochul’s office.

Officials can activate the EOC to respond to disasters or public-health emergencies, per Hochul’s office.

This project has been “many, many years in the making” and the DRI grant allowed the City to “make it happen,” Auburn Mayor Michael Quill said.

“With this project, we have moved our main fire station, invested in improved emergency-management systems and revitalized a neighborhood on our downtown’s northern edge,” Quill said.

Auburn, the second largest city in Central New York, was named a DRI round 3 winner in July 2018.