Chicopee Finance Committee Approves $26,476 for Fire Headquarters Floor Engineering

CHICOPEE -- April 8, 2025, Chicopee Finance Committee unanimously approves $26,476 to begin repairs at Fire Department headquarters. The four-member committee voted 4-0 Tuesday to appropriate the funds from the city's free cash account, covering immediate removal of spalled concrete from a cracked apparatus-bay ceiling and engineering design work needed to cost out a permanent structural fix at 80 Church Street. Facilities Director Dave Rice, standing in for Fire Chief Daniel Stamborski who was at an out-of-town conference, read letters from Stamborski and structural engineer Marc A. Loranger of Gale Associates, Inc., into the record; Loranger called the loose concrete "an imminent fall hazard to all persons and equipment in the general area." Rice told the committee the $26,476 is a first step and that he expects to return to the full City Council with a larger repair appropriation once engineering cost estimates are completed, a process he said could take three to four weeks, with bidding and contract award adding another one to two months.