LYNN — The city will use the former Century Bank building at 2 State St. for the site of the new fire dispatch center and a Lynn Public Schools welcome center, officials said.
In April, the City Council voted unanimously to authorize the purchase of the State Street building, as well as the Element Care building on Friend Street through eminent domain. The Element Care building has since been utilized as a Senior Center.
The city rounded up a committee, composed of representatives from the mayor’s office, the City Council, the fire department, a chief financial officer, a building commissioner, Lynn Public Schools, the School Committee, and the Lynn Public Health Center to plan the site’s redevelopment.
The city’s Chief of Inspectional Services, Michael Donovan, said that the city has been renting the current fire dispatch station for over 25 years, and that the city would like to own their own government-function buildings.
“The fire dispatch is up there at a location that we’re leasing, and have been leasing for 25 years, so the city is seeking to put them in a building that we own. We engaged an architect, and we’ve just started the feasibility study. So we just signed the contracts with the architect,” Donovan said. “The city’s looking to put them in a city building. This is a function that is performed every day, 24/7 365, and we’re in a spot where we’re renting. Usually, we don’t rent out police stations, we don’t rent out public schools, we’re not renting City Hall, so why are we renting the fire dispatch location?”
Donovan said that if all goes according to plan, the new LPS welcoming center on State Street will open in the winter.
“It’ll be done in phases. First the welcoming center, and in a perfect world we’d be moving the welcoming center in some time at the beginning of the year, January, February, and before the end of school, but during the winter months, January, February, March, prior to spring.”
Donovan said that the fire dispatch center, on the other hand, has not yet been through a feasibility study, and will not be ready until next year at the earliest.
“Fire dispatch will take longer. I don’t have a time frame on that, because we haven’t completed the feasibility study. But I would hope that sometime next year, we would have that complete. In a perfect world, if everything went well we would have them in place next year,” he said.
In a statement, Mayor Jared Nicholson said that Cataldo Ambulance Services is currently using the 2 State St. site for medical services, providing free COVID vaccinations and testing to the public, and that he expects the building to reserve space for public health purposes.
“We’re thrilled that the building at 2 State Street has already been put to its intended use as swing space for public health, with COVID vaccinations and testing now being offered there by Cataldo Ambulance Service,” Nicholson said. “Currently, we expect the uses to be the welcome center for Lynn Public Schools and fire alarm dispatch, with swing community space available for public health.”
The Lynn Fire Department declined to comment on the suitability of the city’s State Street property.
Clarification: An earlier version of this story misstated the Fire Department’s statement on the State Street property. They declined to comment on its suitability.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
