Design team outlines fire station before fall testing

Fire Station Building Design Update · Meeting of September 30, 2026

Boxborough fire station design advances toward October subsurface testing, with the training tower now facing a zoning variance fight. Architect Chris Logan told residents the roughly 21,000-square-foot, five-bay station still needs a Zoning Board of Appeals variance because its 50-foot training tower exceeds the town's 30-foot height limit, a point Planning Board members raised the prior week. Fire Station Building Committee Chair Mary Brolin noted the finished site will actually have more permeable surface than the current lot, which she said is covered largely in old bituminous pavement.

Resident Mark White pushed back on the tower's cost-benefit case, saying "I'm not convinced of the need for a tower," while Becky Neville countered, "this to me is short money," citing a fire roughly six years ago in a three-story building where firefighters lacked ladder training. Town Administrator Mike Johnstown said daily traffic on Sara's Way should decrease once the station replaces a prior tenant that ran up to 20 log-truck trips a day.

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Source: the Fire Station Building Design Update meeting of September 30, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.