Aurora will raze, rebuild 45-year-old fire station for $9.3 million, citing structural damage from ‘shifting’ soils

AURORA | An Aurora firehouse will be rebuilt and expanded using federal funds after the city learned loose soil beneath the foundation of the aging station was causing the building to deteriorate.

“I don’t foresee that it would ever become unsafe, where it would be threatening collapse,” Elly Watson of Aurora’s Public Works Department said Tuesday. “But it could just need too many repairs, where you see gaps between walls and floors, and additional cracking.”

Aurora Fire Rescue Station 9, east of South Buckley Road and East Mexico Avenue, was among eight stations that Aurora’s City Council decided to renovate with the help of federal COVID-19 relief money in 2022.

As the four-decade-old station was being evaluated for upgrades, city staffers found cracks in the walls that had expanded noticeably since they were first observed in 2016, suggesting that the ground underneath the building was shifting.

A contractor who drilled into the soil beneath the station discovered the building was sitting on about 7 feet of “fill” material, including sand and clay, as well as sandy soil full of clay and silt that extended as far down as 30 feet below the surface, city spokesman Michael Brannen said.

Watson said the fill material was likely deposited when nearby homes were being built. She described the ground underneath the fire station as “expansive” or “shifting” soil, which tends to swell when wet and shrink when dry, damaging structures that aren’t built to withstand the stress.

While Watson said the station is still a safe home for its complement of four to five firefighters, the city determined that the most cost-effective way of dealing with the building’s structural problems was to tear it down — compacting and possibly removing the old soil in the process — and rebuild a new station in the same spot.

“We wouldn’t want to do a renovation and an addition, and not address these concerns,” Watson said. 

The demolition and construction will cost $9.3 million in total, which is coming out of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act allotment. Aurora’s City Council on Saturday gave the nod to setting aside $4.5 million in ARPA funds to complete the missing half of the project budget.

Besides addressing the soil shifting beneath the existing building’s foundation and drilling down to bedrock to insert support columns, the project would expand the station, adding enough living space to host a second fire company. The new station would also include a gender-neutral bathroom and a larger, more modern kitchen.

“It’s a little tight, and we’d like in the future to preserve the opportunity to have a second company here,” Watson said. “And so we’re going to increase the number of rooms as well as just make it operationally more efficient.”

Watson said the city hopes to start construction work before the end of the year. The current crew of Fire Station 9 will be relocated to a nearby station while the station is being rebuilt, and Engine 9 will remain available to respond to calls in the station’s current coverage area, Aurora FIre Rescue spokeswoman Dawn Small said.

The fire station isn’t the only property in the east Aurora neighborhood suffering from structural problems due to expansive soil.

Mel Caraway, president of the Aurora Highlands Vista Homeowners Association, said nearby property owners have also witnessed deterioration in their homes. Caraway bought his house in 1996 and said he first observed cracks spreading through his basement’s walls and floors a few years after moving in.

“I didn’t get to know all of my neighbors’ issues until I became a board member,” he said. “But I think that there is a problem in a wide range surrounding that location with bentonite (clay).”

Colorado law allows homebuyers to sue builders for damage caused by expansive soils and construction defects — however, property owners have no more than six to eight years to file a lawsuit once construction wraps up.

Caraway’s home was built in 1993, while the homes across the street from the fire station were built in the ’70s, according to county property records. Caraway said he never filed a construction defect lawsuit and is unaware of any of his neighbors suing over damage caused by soil.

Fire Station 9 was completed in 1979. It’s not the oldest building that Aurora Fire Rescue maintains as a station — that distinction belongs to Fire Station 4, which was built in 1966 next to Mississippi Avenue, east of Peoria Street.

However, Watson said the station’s advanced age has lent the project a special sense of urgency.

“It rose to the top because it is 40 years old, and it’s due for a facelift,” she said.

“We’re making this big financial investment, and so we want to do it right.”