Gold Ridge Fire District buys Ceres building next door to Sebastopol Fire Station
This move may cut millions from the estimated cost of renovating the firehouse
The Gold Ridge Fire Protection District has purchased the Ceres building next door to the Sebastopol Fire Station on Bodega Avenue. Gold Ridge Fire Chief Shepley Schroth-Cary said escrow closed on the building last Friday, March 6.
The purchase price of the building, which is located at 7351 Bodega Ave., was $1 million. That may seem a little low for a commercial building in Sebastopol, but the lot is zoned for community facilities only, which limited the number of interested buyers and made the fire district the perfect choice to take over the property.
Schroth-Cary said the new building will initially be used to house Gold Ridge Fire Protection District’s administrative offices, while the Hessel Station is being remodeled.
“Then it’ll be the future home of our Prevention Bureau, as well as the office for Division Chief Dave Bray, who’s been instrumental in managing the consolidation with the Sebastopol Fire Department,” he said.
The building will also house other administrative support staff for the fire district.
What is a Prevention Bureau?
Bray explained that a fire department’s Prevention Bureau is a specialized division dedicated to reducing fire risks through code enforcement, inspections and public education. They review building plans, issue permits, and ensure compliance with safety codes for commercial and residential properties. This includes state-mandated yearly inspections of apartment complexes, schools, hotels and other buildings, as well as inspections required of all new businesses.
“That’s well over 100 mandated inspections in just this 1.7 square miles,” Bray said, referring to the city boundaries of Sebastopol. “That in itself keeps us busy, but then there’s all the business licenses and stuff, so I think last year we did over 80 [business] inspections.”
Moving out and moving over
Deborah Ramelli, Ceres’ director of development and community affairs, said that the nonprofit, which was founded in Sebastopol in 2007, moved out of the building on Bodega and into its spacious new location in Santa Rosa in February.
Now the fire district is hard at work renovating the space.
Schroth-Cary said that one of the key factors in choosing to purchase the Ceres building was the prohibitive cost of remodeling the existing firehouse.
“We had estimates from $5 million to $7 million, and as part of that, we were going to lose our training room,” Schroth-Cary said. “The Ceres building has a really nice meeting room that will allow us to do trainings and volunteer drill nights, and it reduces the cost of the remodel because we don’t have to change the footprint of the current building. That was a big part of our decision-making process to purchase it.”
The original remodel estimates involved adding sleeping quarters to the original firehouse, which Schroth-Cary said they’ve already done. “We took what used to be Chief Braga’s office, and we split that into two bedrooms. Then, as a part of the consolidation, the Building Department moved out, and we turned that office into sleeping quarters as well. So they’re all private individual rooms.”
There’s still more remodeling to be done—like adding updated bathrooms and showers—but Schroth-Cary said that can all be kept inside the original footprint of the firehouse, which will save a lot of money.
Schroth-Cary described the purchase of the Ceres building this way: “I think both needs were met,” he said. “The Ceres Project got the money they hoped to get out of that building to help them with their future goals, and we got a piece of property and building that’s really going to help serve the Sebastopol area. So, it was a win-win for both groups.”