AUBURN — The city will use a former trucking facility near the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport as a temporary fire station while its public safety campus is built on Minot Avenue.

The temporary substation at 67 Kittyhawk Ave. will replace the Central Fire Station for roughly three years while Auburn’s $45 million combined public safety facility is constructed at 550 Minot Ave.

Auburn voters approved the public safety building project in 2023 after the city conducted a facilities assessment that showed deficiencies at all three fire stations and its police station at Auburn Hall.

Officials said there is not sufficient space at the other two stations to accommodate the resources housed at Central Fire, which also includes Lewiston and Auburn’s 911 dispatch, and that relocating will be the best way to ensure a smooth project.

City ordinance allows for public safety uses in the industrial zone if they provide a “community impact and needs analysis” with review and approval from City Council, which voted unanimously in favor Monday.

In the analysis provided to the council, Fire Chief Robert Chase said the impacts of the facility on Kittyhawk are “temporary and minimal,” with the city taking over a site that was once a trucking and distribution facility. He said no changes are anticipated for the site and the department anticipates moving operations there either later this year or in early 2026, where they will remain until the new public safety facility is complete sometime in 2028.

Chase said the Kittyhawk site features five drive-through garage bays and an attached office space that can be “efficiently renovated” to accommodate the department’s administrative staff. The building will house one tower truck with a staff of three firefighters and be used for equipment storage.

According to City Manager Phil Crowell, the city purchased the Kittyhawk Avenue property for $1.3 million. Crowell said an estimate for the retrofitting costs is still being finalized and he hopes to have an update for the council in August.

In his memo to the council, Chase said operating out of a temporary building is the optimal approach. It will allow for the design team to create an “efficient, purpose-built public safety building that will meet the needs of the community for the next 50 years.”

“This approach will also significantly reduce the coordination and logistical aspects of the project, reducing construction costs,” he said.

A study commissioned by the city in 2020 found several issues with its public safety facilities, and recommended the best option for creating a public safety campus was to build a combined central fire and police station at the Minot Avenue property.

The city’s three fire stations, built between 1952 and 1974, “do not support current programs and staffing,” Chase said.

Among the deficiencies listed were life safety, diversity accommodations, lack of adequate space for additional beds, offices, fitness areas and storage, and a lack of health and safety systems that are now standard to reduce firefighter cancers.

The Police Department has been operating at Auburn Hall at 60 Court St. since 2011, which at the time was meant to be a temporary solution to replace its former station at 1 Minot Ave. The location was only meant to be a five-year solution until a headquarters could be built, and officials have said the Auburn Hall location continues to present challenges for a modern police force.