GUILDERLAND — McKownville will have a new $9.6 million firehouse, built in the footprint of its current 57-year-old station.

On Tuesday, fire-district residents passed the measure in a landslide — with 80 percent of the vote, according to Michael Costabile, the chief of the all-volunteer department.

“We truly want to thank the residents of the district for their overwhelming support and look forward to keeping everyone informed as we proceed with this very needed project,” Costabile told The Enterprise in an email on Tuesday night, stating that the volunteers are “thrilled.”

Of the 137 votes cast, 109 were in favor and 28 were opposed, Costabile reported.

Construction is expected to take about 18 months. "Construction we hope will begin in about a year," said Costabile. "In regards to all the prep work, that started years ago and continues right now. Between meetings, and planning, and approvals, we have our work cut out for us."

“We’ll still be the smallest station in town yet we’re the second busiest,” Jim White, who chairs the board for the McKownville Fire District, said in October.

The McKownville department, founded in 1918, answers between 250 and 275 calls each year.

Since the old firehouse will be torn down, White said, the plan is to operate from a temporary structure on town-owned property across the street. White said he’d started working on the project 10 years ago.

The plan for the new station calls for going from the current three bays to four for fire apparatus and also adds a second story. But, White stressed, there is “nothing elaborate.”

Rather than the many offices featured in other firehouses, White said, there would be one conference room to allow for social distancing, a lesson learned during the pandemic.

The primary goal, White said, is: “We want to keep our firefighters safe.”

Dennis Ross, with H2M, said at the October presentation, “Cancer prevention is probably the single most important issue.” The new firehouse, he explained, is designed so that carcinogens are contained. There would be a separate entry for the public.

Ross also said of the current firehouse, “This building is not salvageable.”

“We went for a modern look with large windows,” said Ross, which will let in natural light.

White said the fire district serves about 900 households. The population of the district increases drastically when classes at the University at Albany are in session, as the Indigenous Quad dormitory is within the district —  40 percent of the department’s calls are to the UAlbany campus.

The district’s population also increases during the daytime hours due to the businesses offices that in Stuyvesant Plaza, Tower Place, and Executive Park.

The current fire tax rate in McKownville is $1.58 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The estimated cost of the new firehouse is $1.48 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The median assessed home value in McKownville is $253,912. So those average homeowners would be paying $31.31 per month for the new firehouse — or $375.72 per year.