Published by LO Review – 12:00 pm Wednesday, February 4, 2026
By Mac Larsen
The bond estimate is now $20.5 million
Where are the sliding garage doors? It’s a valid question to ask about the conceptual design for the city of Lake Oswego’s proposed new South Shore Fire Station.
However, there’s a reason for the change and many of the features in the conceptual drawings for the new facility along South Shore Boulevard.
City staff briefed the City Council on the design concepts, cost updates and polling results for a potential May 2026 ballot measure to fund the new fire station during its Tuesday, Feb. 3 meeting.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since council first set the goal to explore the cost of building a new South Shore Fire Station while engaging the community,” said Assistant Fire Chief Kristine Artman at the meeting.
The two-story fire station features side-to-side automated doors, instead of the difficult-to-repair overhead doors, a decontamination room to limit first-responders’ exposure to carcinogens, a patio overlooking South Shore Boulevard, a quiet room, a wellness room and a fitness space.
“The wellness room is really one of the things that we are seeing in fire station design across the country as a way to address the mental health of firefighters,” said project architect Michael Scott. “You have to recognize there’s a spectrum of how people experience and process trauma. You cannot provide one single solution or one single space to address that.”
Currently, the total bond cost estimate for the South Shore Fire Station has decreased from $21.22 million in December 2025 to $20.5 million. The changes stem from the removal of the proposed community space, although the initial $250,000 addition for rock excavation came as a surprise last year.
The current bond cost projection would require the average household to pay $114 per year.
At the meeting, Mayor Joe Buck explained the challenges and uniqueness of this bond initiative.
“We haven’t done a project like this where we have just the bond for one project (rather than to pay for a bunch of projects), and so it’s a little tricky, because, you know, we’re trying to put a cost estimate together before we’ve really even designed the building beyond one very kind of conceptual layout,” Buck said.
Polling results:
The city’s polling contractor – FM3 Research – conducted 417 interviews to capture a demographic snapshot of Lake Oswego’s likely voters for the May 2026 election.
They found that the bond for the South Shore Fire Station has support from three in five voters based on ballot measure language alone. This is an increase from last summer when only 54% of likely voters supported the ballot measure.
Many of those polled said they would endorse the bond measure to support firefighters and public safety and to improve and modernize local infrastructure.
Higher taxes were the main reason polled residents said they wouldn’t support the measure.
LO Review Article found here: https://lakeoswegoreview.com/2026/02/04/polling-indicates-support-for-new-lake-oswego-fire-station/
