Oak Park needs a new fire station. The price tag is $12.7 million, and the village has no way to borrow the money until approximately 2032.

The Village Board voted at a special meeting Tuesday, July 28, to advance planning for a replacement of Fire Station 2 at 212 Augusta, selecting a two-story building on a new site as the preferred design, according to Oak Park's village website.

CFO Kevin Bueso told trustees the project was not included in the village's long-term debt framework, adopted just a week earlier, and that current financial projections show no additional borrowing capacity until approximately 2032.

That leaves three paths to pay for the station before then: tapping untouched reserves, bumping other capital projects from the queue, or directing year-over-year operating surpluses into the capital fund.

"If we can count on surpluses year over year, we can get authorization or guidance from the board to move those funds, those surpluses, to the capital fund to fund these specific projects," Bueso said at the Tuesday, July 28 meeting.

Why the station needs replacing

The existing station was built in 1917, when the property included a horse stable at the rear.

At roughly 3,500 square feet, it is about half the 6,500 square feet that architecture firm Cordogan Clark determined is necessary after conducting a space-needs analysis funded through the 2026 capital improvement budget.

The building's bay doors cannot accommodate modern fire engines moving quickly in and out. Living quarters sit directly above the apparatus bay, creating carcinogen-transfer risks, and there is no adequate space for a decontamination flow when firefighters return from calls.

Cordogan Clark's study identified three priorities: adding an Advanced Life Support Ambulance crew, improving staff safety, and providing recruitment and retention enhancements to address a statewide firefighter shortage.

A separate Baker Tilly study released in September 2025 found the Oak Park Fire Department responded to more calls in 2024 than in any year since at least 2019, with annual overtime costs exceeding $1 million due partly to staffing gaps.

Trustees push to move quickly

All trustees favored the two-story, new-site option and agreed that rebuilding on the current Augusta plot would not work.

Trustee James Taglia urged the village to begin a property search immediately, calling land acquisition "the most inexpensive part of what we're looking at" and noting that suitable parcels are rare.

The $12.7 million estimate, Bueso cautioned, will shift once a property is identified and more detailed design plans are developed. The Finance Committee is expected to take up the funding question at a meeting in August.

The Tuesday, July 21 debt framework the board adopted covered the Oak Park Avenue streetscape, a police station, Village Hall improvements, and other infrastructure through up to $18 million in general obligation bonds.

Fire Station 2 was not part of that package, leaving its funding an open question heading into the Finance Committee review.