BonnerSprings.com

Bonner Springs came one step closer to having a new facility for its Emergency Medical Services department.

At its regular meeting Tuesday, the Planning Commission approved a site and landscape plan for a renovation and expansion of the city's fire station at 13001 Metropolitan Ave. The work will include an Emergency Medical Services facility, which now has its offices in a house behind City Hall, on Cedar Street.

The addition to the station envisioned in the plan would add 9,900 square feet to the facility to make it 19,200 square feet, including 2,400 square feet that would be renovated. The design would accommodate a 24-hour, nine-person crew, and include an administrative headquarters for each department, as well as a safe room for extreme weather.

City Manager John Helin on Wednesday estimated the project's construction cost at $3.5 million. Funding for the project, Helin said, would come from the sale of a 20-year bond, and the emergency services capital fund could pay for the first few years of bond payments before the .25 cent sales tax expires in 2013, and the remaining payments would need to be funded by an extension of that sales tax or from the city's general fund.

The next step in the project will be to let it out to bid, Helin said, to see how much it will cost before a financing method is decided on.