SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District has begun renovating a fire station at Military Ocean Terminal Concord near Concord as part of a larger plan to modernize the installation by 2020.
“When these renovations are completed, firefighters will be able to better support the mission and provide a quicker response to an emergency on this side of the installation,” said Lt. Commander Tim Freeman, deputy commander of the 834th Transportation Battalion, MOTCO’s sole tenant.
A ground breaking ceremony for the project was held April 16, and construction will begin in mid-May.
Currently, the fire station bays are not large enough to house modern fire engines. The $3.5 million renovation is scheduled to be completed in winter 2015, and will include an expansion of the bays to house modern fire engines and equipment as well as improve living quarters for the resident firefighters.
“This will bring many necessary improvements to quality of life including better living space for the firefighters,” said Lt. Col. Braden LeMaster, the Sacramento District’s deputy district engineer.
The Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command's MOTCO, formerly known as Concord Naval Weapons Station, supports ammunition delivery to troops in the Pacific.
This facility is the Army’s major ammunition transportation shipment port for the West Coast. The 834th Transportation Battalion is the sole tenant and caretaker of this California terminal and is responsible for nearly 25 percent of the nation’s total ammunition shipping capability.
The Sacramento District is working with MOTCO to modernize infrastructure throughout the installation during the next five years. Planned projects including upgrading the electrical systems, a lightning protection system, bridges, roads, storage holding pads and lift stations, as well as building new security facilities, a new 8,000-square-foot administration, engineering and maintenance building by late summer of 2015, and add 8,000 square feet to a locomotive maintenance shop in 2016.
A key project in the $200 million plan is to modernize several of MOTCO’s shipping piers, including one which has been inoperable for the past five years.
“The improvements we are doing here at MOTCO are critical for national security and we’re committed to getting them done as quickly as we possibly can,” said Peter Broderick, the Sacramento District’s MOTCO project manager. “These projects will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the work being done here so that they can continue to support the warfighter overseas.”