CHILTON, Wis. (WFRV) – It’s been several years in the making, but the City of Chilton finally secured enough financing to build a new fire station for its crews.

City officials and firefighters from the Chilton Fire Department held a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday to signify the start of construction. According to Chilton Mayor Tom Reinl, the current fire station has been around since 1935, making an upgrade a necessity.

“We won’t have to order trucks that are lower than what they’re manufactured to be,” said Reinl. “Right now, any truck that we receive is specially made so that it can fit through our doors. There’s also no room in our fire department.”

Those are just some of the reasons Reinl explained to Local 5 News why the City of Chilton was due for an upgrade. The project is expected to cost around $2.75 million, but Reinl says the tax roll remained the same regardless of the major funding needed.

“We’ve planned this over the last couple of years, so we allowed for this in our budgeting,” added Reinl.

Chilton City Administrator David Detroye echoed a lot of the things Reinl touched on, including how impactful this new fire station will be on the community.

“[The fire station] is extremely dated,” said Detroye. “The time is now that we have to build for our future. This building is scoped to add on in the future when we want to add offices and departments for the facility.”

Detroye also said that the city initially asked for a bigger building, but in order to keep the tax roll within a comfortable level, they had to scale back a little bit.

Officials concluded that the new Chilton Fire Department is scheduled to be finished by Labor Day, with upgrades to the police department, city hall, and other buildings in the future.

For more information about the Chilton Fire Department, click here.