‘A huge moment for public safety in Airway Heights’: City celebrates its new public safety building with ribbon-cutting ceremony

Some 70 Airway Heights residents, along with firefighters, police and city staff gathered in an empty commercial building Tuesday for a ribbon cutting to celebrate the city’s new public safety facility.

The 39,600-square-foot space, sitting on 4 acres, is the result of an $8 million bond voters overwhelmingly approved in August to purchase the building and remodel it to become a new and improved fire station.

Airway Heights’ current station is 55 years old, and city leaders say it no longer fits the city’s needs.

“If there’s 3 inches of snow, they can’t even get the truck out of the fire station because it lifts too much to catch on the roof,” said Mark Losh, CEO of West Plains Chamber of Commerce. “They eat where the fumes are, they dress where the fumes are, their gear is stored where the fumes of the trucks are. It’s a garage. It’s not a fire station. This is a fire station.”

Mitch Metzger, Airway Heights’ fire chief, spoke before the ribbon-cutting and thanked the city’s past and present leaders.

“We’ve been working on this project for a long, long time. I’ve been pushing this for 12 years, and I know some of them have started before I even got here,” he said. “Our existing structure was built in 1968, and it’s been remodeled 10 times – three of those times since I’ve been here.”

“Our call volume has increased 172% over the last 10 years,” Metzger said. “We can’t keep up anymore in the facility that we’re in.”

A fire station won’t be the only use for the new property. The structure, labeled a “public safety campus,” will also provide space for Airway Heights’ City Hall, police station and municipal court.

“This building will provide us, the police and the departments, with the opportunity to expand our programs not only for our crews but for our public as well. The facility will be open so that the public can come in and utilize some of our spaces,” Metzger said.

The city plans to break ground on the remodel in May. Officials are expected to move into the building in early 2025.

“This is a huge moment for public safety here in Airway Heights,” Metzger said.