The Laguna Beach City Council studied options for replacing Fire Station 1 and for locating the city's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on or near that site after consultants found the existing station is "undersized" and "difficult to access." Assistant City Manager Gavin Curran framed the item as follow-up to the June 24 Facilities Master Plan workshop and asked the council for direction.

Dustin Alamo, vice president and project manager with Griffin Structures, said the team compared several city-owned and off-site alternatives for a long-term station location and "the proposed site scored the highest among all the sites in question." He described trade-offs among cost, acquisition timing, zoning hurdles and operational response times when evaluating the village-entrance parcel north of City Hall, the Christmas tree lot, the tennis-court/festival parcel, and off-site parcels including the former OCTA bus-stop location.

The consultants reported that co-locating police, fire and an EOC in a single complex is "operationally feasible, but it's a significant lift," with a rough cost range of $90 million to $121 million for a large shared complex. They also said an EOC could be incorporated directly into a new Fire Station 1 footprint: "Factoring the EOC adds roughly $6,000,000 to the project, bringing the total project cost to $30 to $33,000,000, inclusive of Fire Station 1, fire admin, and the EOC all in 1 facility," Alamo said.

Public commenters urged caution about using visually prominent public land for a new station. One resident asked the council to consider alternatives such as the automobile-repair parcel and warned against using village-entrance parking. Several commenters urged preserving nearby park and public parking assets.

During council deliberations members repeatedly described a seismically sound Fire Station 1 as a near-term public safety priority. Council direction at the end of the discussion narrowed the field for additional study: staff should perform further analysis of (1) the village-entrance site north of City Hall, (2) the former OCTA bus-stop parcel downtown that the city already owns, and (3) potential longer-term coordination with Laguna Beach County Water District property (including a high-level test of whether departmental relocations could free up alternative city sites).

Council emphasized this is study-session feedback, not a final decision; staff were asked to return with more detailed analysis of access, parking impacts, seismic and operational implications, and relative cost differentials among the shortlisted options.

What happens next: staff will evaluate the three candidate paths and present comparative analysis and draft implementation steps in a future meeting, including anticipated impacts to downtown parking and timelines for design and funding.