Sometime next year EMS personnel will be working out of a new facility in Bayview on South Whidbey Island.
Plans call for building an approximately 5,000-square-foot ambulance facility to replace the current one located near Nichols Brothers Boat Builders in Freeland.
Roger Meyers, EMS manager on Whidbey Island, said the proposal provides a building that includes four bedrooms, living and kitchen space, a small workout room and a bay big enough for three ambulances.
He said the most positive point about the new building is that it will be more centrally located and it will speed up response times, as well as making life better for the crews.
When EMS personnel moved into its current location around 15 years ago, it provided a central location for the calls it received. However, the calls in recent years have been migrating south.
Meyer said the new location will mean better response times for folks living in Langley and Clinton. He hopes the new building will be complete sometime in the late spring or early next summer.
The project will cost approximately $3.2 million and is funded through the EMS levy voters approved in 2006.
The six-year levy was designed to fund three major projects. In addition to the Bayview ambulance bay, there are also plans to build an ambulance bay in Coupeville. That building would be added on to the new fire station located next to Whidbey General Hospital.
The current ambulance building in Coupeville is a metal building that can house two people, while the Freeland building is an old residential home.
The third piece was to fund two more ambulance units for Whidbey Island. The first one came into service on North Whidbey Island in September 2007 and the second one came into service in February 2008.
Rogers said construction on the Bayview facility should begin in late September or early October.
The project still has to go out to bid. Whidbey General Hospital Chief Operating Officer Tom Tomasino said dates to start advertising for the new construction project have not yet been decided.
