By Rodd Cayton
The past met the future in Bernalillo Monday morning. Town officials hosted New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other dignitaries at the closed Roosevelt Elementary School to break ground on a new Donato Sanchez Fire Station No. 1. The $10 million project is expected to be completed in about a year.
“For me, a part of the excitement of this project is that we’re bringing back another piece of this campus to life,” Mayor Jack Torres told the dozens of attendees who chose to celebrate despite the threat of rain. “When we can take a facility that’s still in reasonably good shape and repurpose it and bring it back to life, that’s just a plus.” Torres said the project is a big win for firefighters, who have been quartered in town hall. After the ceremony, Fire Chief Bryan Picchione told The Paper. crews are excited about having a space designed to meet their needs.
Torres noted that the state provided all of the money for the project, making it unnecessary to raise local property taxes. Gov. Lujan Grisham said providing the funding is a message from Santa Fe about the state’s priorities. “We forget about firefighters far too often in America, and we’re working hard to make sure we don’t forget about them or our small towns and villages right here in New Mexico,” she said. “This building, this investment in this community, means that we believe this community is both growing, and is an important community for New Mexico’s future.”
The station’s namesake was Bernalillo’s first fire chief. His son, Tom Sanchez, spoke of how the then-volunteer department operated. “Back in the day, the fire phone used to be in my dad’s bedroom,” he said, adding that his dad charged him with taking care of the phone when he was out and pulling the alarm if there was a fire. Other speakers included state Reps. Alan Martinez and Derek Lente, each of whom Torres called instrumental in getting the money for the new station approved.
“This is a historic moment,” Torres said. “And in years to come, when people drive by and see this station, a lot of them will have no idea how it got here or what happened, but all of us will.”
EPX New Mexico is the contractor and Molzen Corbin served as consulting engineers.