“Rowley is in need of a police station and is in desperate need of a fire station,” said Rowley Police Chief, Scott Dumas. 

As the Rowley police station, or ‘Pizza Hut’ as many town officials have named it due to the similarities in building shape to the pizza chain’s becomes older and more outdated, construction is underway for a new police and fire department. This would not only be a police station but a public safety building, encompassing police and fire.   

Rowley voted on a site for and the construction of a public safety building since the 1990’s. As the plans were voted down twice, the town’s liability has risen as the buildings have continued to age, however, the third vote passed the proposed plans- to the tune of 13.8 million dollars.

Construction at 447 Haverhill Street, in Rowley, started in early February and will be completed mid-next year. K&R Excavators, which is owned by Ryan Greenwich, is the first organization on site.

“This project includes a new fire station and an addition to the police station that is already here while revamping what exists as the current police station,” Greenwich said. “We are doing all of the site, drainage and utilities work, as well as the septic systems for both the police and fire station.”

“Since we started around a month ago, we have removed many of the trees that were here and then we had to rip out all of the stumps and take them off-site. There were 15 trailer loads of stumps and we have 3 or 4 more to remove,” Greenwich said.

The removal of the trees, however, is causing angst among some members of the community. Triton junior, Erin Drew, lives on the abutting property.

“When I look out my back door I can see the police station perfectly, before the construction I couldn’t see it at all,” said Drew. “It is sad to drive by and see that all the trees are cut down because my whole life, that whole space has always been filled with trees and you couldn’t see that park from the street but now you can perfectly see the playground from the road.”

With the newly cleared land, there will be additions made to the existing police station, replacing the trailers that have existed as the ‘addition’ to the current police station for the last 15 years.

“The trailers were supposed to be semi-permanent and only be here for five to seven years,” Dumas said. “They have been removed and this existing structure will have an addition put on. The cell block will stay where it is and there will be a new prisoner transfer area. We don’t have one, which means we have to walk the prisoner from outside in the parking lot, where we are exposed to the elements and the other people.”

“Obviously, both buildings have space constraints. There are only a couple of inches on either side of the firetrucks when they get backed in” Dumas said.

Rowley Fire Chief, James Broderick, concurred. “Everything is shoehorned in here. It’s not made to house the equipment we have. This building was an old pool hall, and this site was selected after we moved off of Main Street in the 1930’s.

“We have stuff laying everywhere because we don’t have any room for storage. The new station would have plenty of room for storage,” Broderick said.

“We don’t have space to adequately train. We used to train at Pine Grove School, however that is being used most days now,” said Broderick. “The new building has plenty of training rooms inside, which would include audio and visual equipment. Outside, we would have space to lay out hoses and to ladder the building.”

“These will be buildings that we can grow in to,” Broderick said. “It would allow us to purchase new equipment which is bigger, as well as hire more firefighters if that is what we wanted to do, as well as house an ambulance if we wanted.”

“There would be many benefits to the town,” Broderick said. “First it would reduce response time to much of the town, plus we would not be bringing home carcinogens to our families because we would have a space to decontaminate our turnout gear and shower before we go home. That would reduce the town’s liability and also reduce the number of insurance payouts over time, because fewer firefighters would be getting cancer.”