Construction on a new Klein Volunteer Fire Department station at 9600 Crescent Clover Drive will start in October, Chief David Bessolo said.

The 11,000-square-foot building will be called Station No. 8 and will serve the Gleannloch Farms area, said Mike Pate, assistant secretary for Emergency Services District No. 16, which contracts with KVFD.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held after a contractor is chosen for the project, and the facility will open within 12 months, Pate said. It will include a day room, offices and dormitories as well as apparatus and equipment rooms. The new station will initially have two fire engines and is expected to add a third next year.

Station No. 8 will cover a 4- to 6-mile radius within the rapidly developing area between Champion Forest Drive and the Grand Parkway, Pate said. The area is also bounded by Spring Cypress Road, Hwy. 249 and Stuebner Airline Road.

The station will be located close to the center of the area bounded by the areas it serves.

A station is needed in the area because increased traffic is projected to slow response times, Pate said.

“The Klein-Spring area is going through a [growth] spurt, and traffic is getting worse,” he said. “It was identified that in Gleannloch Farms, the response times would exceed our threshold, so to keep that response time number where we need it, we needed to add another station.”

The department regularly conducts response time assessments. The 2015 average response time to an incident classified as Type 111, such as a structural fire, was 7 minutes and
35 seconds. The standard in similar communities is about 10 minutes, ESD 16 Secretary Steve Falkner said.

“We expect the new station will reduce response times,” he said.

Revenue from a 1-cent sales tax approved by voters in May 2015 will help provide funds for the station, Falkner said. The sales tax, which went into effect in October 2015, has generated over $2.8 million in revenue for ESD 16 over the past year.

“ESD 16 is hopeful that the imposition of the sales tax will ultimately allow [it] to provide reduced property taxes and improved service to the community,” he said.

Revenue from the sales tax will be used as collateral for a $4 million loan to pay for the station, Falkner said.

In addition to the sales tax, the district is funded through a property tax  rate of 5 cents per $100 valuation.

Five of the department’s stations have paid firefighters on staff, but initially the Gleannloch Farms station will rely on volunteers to provide coverage, Bessolo said.

“We are currently actively recruiting volunteers,and we hope for 15 to 20 volunteers,” he said.

Training for new firefighters lasts three months and is conducted in-house by the fire company two days a week, Bessolo said.