No Shovels In The Ground Yet, But New Barn For Southampton Volunteer Ambulance Closer To Construction

A new facility for Southampton Volunteer Ambulance moved closer to reality last month, as members of the Town Board voted to execute agreements with varied contractors involved in the construction of the 8,600-square-foot “barn.”

The new $3.5 million building will be constructed on a 1.5-acre parcel right next door to the current barn on North Sea Road in North Sea.

Much more than a traditional barn, the new facility will feature an array of attributes lacking in the current headquarters. The current facility, for instance, is much too small to accommodate the entire membership, so volunteers must empty the garage, moving their emergency vehicles out onto the asphalt, when they want to meet.

There are no showers or bunks for volunteers, some of whom travel from as far away as Port Jefferson to serve.

“One of the things that’s going to be nice is bunk rooms,” Ian King, district EMS supervisor, said. All newer firehouses and local ambulance buildings have them, he added.

“A lot of our members are coming from outside the area. If they want to come and do a duty night, they need some place to stay,” King explained.

Southampton Village attracts volunteers due to its reputation as one of the busier agencies for trauma on the East End. It’s also one of the largest ambulance organizations, serving a 35-square-mile area that includes the Shinnecock Nation territory, Shinnecock Hills, Tuckahoe, North Sea and Water Mill.

One of the biggest reasons the department needs a new barn, said King, is the size of the membership. “Since this building was built, our membership has grown,” he said during a visit to the prefab Morton building that’s been home for three decades. The corps carries an average of around 45 members.

There’s just one large room for meetings in the old facility. It’s the size of a big living room in a residential dwelling. “We can’t fit 45 people in here,” King pointed out.

Nor can the company perform the training they want to undertake and share with the community. “We're interested in the county coming out to do classes here, but this room doesn’t meet their requirements,” King said.

Limits to office space mean patient car documents, which must be stored for a certain time period, must be kept in an off-site storage unit. That means, according to Donna Kreymborg, chair of the board of directors, that volunteers are often driving back and forth between the barn and storage unit.

Moving to the cramped garage during the tour, King explained the volunteers currently use two ambulances, down from the three they had several years ago. They’d like to go back to three ambulances due to the increased call volume and the frequency with which they have multiple calls at the same time.

Last year was a record breaker, in terms of call volume, with volunteers responding to 1,100 calls. By mid-November this year, they were on track to surpass 1,000 calls again, with over 920 already on the books .

“Storage is a big issue for us,” King said, opening a crammed double-door closet in the garage area. It’s not much bigger than a clothes closet in a home, yet it must hold equipment for both advanced life support and basic life support calls. The space crunch means the organization can’t save money by ordering in bulk.

“There’s a lot of things we can’t do because the space we’re limited on,” King said. “It’s tough.”

King predicted that the existing barn site likely will be signed over to the town, which could then sell it as surplus, with the proceeds offsetting the cost of construction.

The new facility will include a kitchen, offices, a garage with four bays, meeting and training rooms, two small bunk rooms, and a basement for storage.

The original plan considered a metal-paneled building. In response to input from the community and the Town Planning Board, the designers changed the pitch of the roof to better allow for solar panels, and will have horizontal siding along the front of the building. It’s easily twice the size of the original building, which was built some 30 years ago, King said.

“We’re thankful for the support of the Town Board,” King said, adding that he is looking forward to the beginning of construction. “The Southampton Board has been very instrumental and responsive to our needs, and we’re very grateful for that,” Kreymborg echoed.

According to Southampton Town Historian Julie Greene, The Southampton Volunteer Ambulance, based in North Sea, was proposed in early 1989 “to cover the fire districts of Southampton and North Sea combined, which had been covered earlier by the Dunes Post VFW Ambulance Corp. in Southampton Village.”

The present North Sea Road headquarters opened sometime in 1990 or 1991, she said.

Southampton Town’s adopted 2021 budget lists four ambulance districts under its purview covering Southampton, Westhampton, Hampton Bays, and Flanders/Northampton. They’re funded as contract agencies by the Town Board. Some communities, like East Quogue, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor and Southampton Village, fund their own, separate organizations.

The move to a new facility dates back over two years, with the Town Board looking at plans in 2019. On November 9, the Town Board voted to contract with Commander Electric to spend up to $445,000 for the electrical portion, with Stalco General Contractors for the $3,448,830 general construction portion, with Hirsch & Co. for up to $267,000 for plumbing, and with Intricate Tech Solutions Ltd. for up to $267,000 for the mechanical portion of the new facility.