New North Port safety building coming to Wellen Park

New station will provide swift emergency services to growing population of one of the fastest-growing master-planned communities in the country

NORTH PORT, Fla, Aug. 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - The City of North Port Public Safety Building, which the developers of Wellen Park have long planned to provide as part of the growing region, is finally becoming a reality.

The 24,000-square-foot City of North Port Safety Building being built at the corner of Tamiami Trail and Preto Boulevard will include Fire Station 86 and house a fire engine, ladder truck, two ambulances and 11 personnel in the four-bay building. The new facility will also help the city uphold its end on mutual aid agreements with the safety services of other municipalities.

Additionally, the city's new safety building will house a police annex for the North Port Police Department, as well as a fire prevention bureau/plans examiner's office in the heart of growing Wellen Park.

"They'll be the primary fire plans reviewer (inspector) serving Wellen Park as it continues to grow, so it will give better access and provide a place where they can have meetings with the developer, contractors, or anything like that," explains Scott Titus, fire chief of the City of North Port Fire Rescue.

In the early years of development, Sarasota County handled the emergency call volume for the Wellen Park section of North Port through a mutual aid agreement. "It was primarily ranch land, so there was very little impact," Chief Titus says about the previous arrangement. "As development has taken off, so have the emergency calls and the need for the city to have its own up-to-date fire station onsite in Wellen Park."

North Port's fire department needs the new station to provide swift emergency services to the growing population of city residents west of the Myakka River and to reduce the load on the county fire station at the State College of Florida campus.

"We commissioned a study by the respected Emergency Services Consulting International firm that showed not only what the current needs are for emergency services but what the future anticipated needs would be as the community continues to grow," says Rick Severance, President of Wellen Park. "The study clearly showed the need for and recommended an enhanced station to be built to serve the community. We folded this into the strategic plan to provide coverage now and in the future as the incorporated area of Wellen Park continues to grow."

The new public safety building will also be a place for the fire department to do public outreach and for people in the community to visit. It will include a 1946 Seagrave fire truck housed within a glassy display room, "evoking the rich history of the fire service and of North Port Fire Rescue; glowing at night like a lantern for the community," according to a press release from designer Plunkett Raysich Architects of Sarasota.

North Port Fire Rescue

• Responded to 379 alarms in Wellen Park from 1/1/19- 6/23/20

North Port Police Department

• Total calls for service in the Wellen Park Area = 3,169 from 1/1/2019 to 7/8/2020.
• Nearly 1,900 interactions with the public during that time.
• Average response time for priority 1 calls = 2:21. Overall calls = 7:21
• Traffic Enforcement Agreement with West Villages Improvement District (WVID).
• Assigned officer to the West Villages Improvement District 24 hours a day.

Mattamy Homes, North America's largest privately owned homebuilder, is the developer and majority owner of Wellen Park. For more information about living at Wellen Park, call 941-960-7805 or visit wellenpark.com.

SOURCE Wellen Park