This stenciled No. 3 on the floor of the Avondale Estates fire station is one of many things around the station that needed fixing up. File photo by Dan Whisenhunt

After being closed for more than a year, the construction of a new fire station along Clarendon Avenue in Avondale Estates is finally complete.

The city reported the news on its Instagram account:

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“The construction on DeKalb County Fire Station No. 3 is complete! Crew members will be moving in within the next few weeks,” the account says.

Construction on the station, first built in 1949, officially began in the summer of 2014. Crews had moved out of the station a few months earlier, days before one of the deadliest house fires in the city’s history claimed the lives of two residents. The response time to the fire would’ve been cut in half if the station had been operational, a spokesman for the department said at the time.

The rebuild of the station had been long-overdue and was held up primarily due to DeKalb County bureaucracy.

The DeKalb County Commission awarded the $1.9 million contract for rebuilding the fire station, a project funded with federal money, in January of 2014. Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton was accused of holding up the contract. Sutton said at the time she delayed awarding the contract because she wanted to explore the possibility of entering into an intergovernmental agreement with Avondale Estates that would ensure the city would pay a “fair market rate” for the station if the city ever wants to buy it.

When Decaturish toured the station in February of 2014, it was falling apart. To see photos of the old station, click here.

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