The City of Swift Current is on to the next step of potentially building a new fire hall.

A new building - which would be in an empty lot beside where the current library is - isn't imminent, but after Monday night's council meeting, the City is on to the second of three phases that are part of the process leading to its future construction.

Phase I was the schematic design, and Phase II involves developing construction-ready blueprints. The City hopes for federal or provincial grants (such as the Building Canada Fund), but is working towards having all the plans ready to go, should the grant require the project to be 'shovel ready.'

Swift Current Fire Chief Denis Pilon (who is retiring this summer) said it's not as if they need a new hall immediately, but they are ready to expand into a larger building. The City is in partnership with P3Architecture Partnership (P3A) out of Regina. Phase I was a $78,000 contract on a $100,000 budget.

"Phase II now goes into the actual design process where they're going to actually look at the floor style, how thick it's got to be, the electrical, the mechanical, plumbing, heating, that type of stuff will go into it. We start to get into the real details of the design," said Pilon.

The budget for Phase II is $450,000. Pilon said their "stab-in-the-dark" estimate of the total cost of a new fire hall is around $10 million. If there is no grant, there's still the possibility a new building is created - depending on council's decision.

Pilon said the new fire hall would be slightly larger than the current one on Chaplin Street East, between 2nd Ave Northeast and 3rd Ave Northeast.

"The plan is to have sufficient room for two more trucks than we've got right now, which would lead us well into the future, whether it's actual fire trucks or other equipment or something like that. The room is there so it gives us some room to grow and expand it as need be."

Currently the fire department has five trucks, three trailers, and a boat.

One of the improvements the concept they're looking at would have is a larger classroom that would serve as the emergency-operations centre for the City should a major disaster strike. There would also be a room that could showcase the department's three antique trucks that could be used for an extra bay or other purposes if need be.

In terms of the potential new fire hall being beside a library, Pilon mentioned that they're currently in a residential area already where sirens isn't ideal. That and that you can hear them from a decent distance anyway.

Two fire halls in Regina and one in Medicine Hat were toured so the City could take a look at recent construction methods.

Phase III would be the City tendering the project and overseeing its construction.