Kentlands Firehouse is Unsafe for Public, Officials Say

The City of Gaithersburg is working to limit public access to the Kentlands Firehouse, Deputy City Manager Tony Tomasello told Mayor Sidney Katz and the City Council at their weekly meeting Monday.

"The short story is we really believe it's no longer feasible to allow the public to tour that building," Tomasello said.

City Manager Angel Jones came to the decision after she, Tomasello and Planning and Code Administration inspected the building on June 9, following a Monday council meeting that saw Kentlands residents and advocates for the arts voice their support toward the use of the firehouse as an expansion of the Kentlands Arts Barn.

The interior of the building poses a number of health risks, Permits and Inspections Director W. Wesley Barnette said. Many areas of the firehouse are caked with a thick, black mold.

"Prior to any mitigation of mold it could be unsafe for people to go through the building without appropriate respiration equipment," Barnette said. "Additionally, it appears the plumbing waste lines, toilet, sink and tub traps are not cut off and there may be sewer gas in the building."

Both Barnette and Tomasello noted that much of the roofing is heavily deteriorated, with leaks and falling debris.

City staff will conduct a more thorough inspection of the building next week, including cost estimates for renovation, but "I wanted to express my concerns regarding the safety of people going into the building now that I’m aware of the aforementioned issues," Barnette said in an e-mail to Jones and Tomasello.

Despite the decision, "public access to the Firehouse has been minimal for several years," Jones said. The Arts Barn uses the garage to build and paint set pieces, while the city uses it to store Christmas decorations, which will be taken out and stored somewhere else after the next Christmas season, Tomasello said.

Other than that, the firehouse is mainly used as a kind of junk closet: Jones said it holds bicycles, once used for tours of the Kentlands, that do not appear to have been used for some time, and "housing artifacts" from the original Kentlands Farm.

At the Monday meeting, Katz and Council Vice President suggested that, along with the costs of renovating the building, staff should look into estimating the cost of completely demolishing the firehouse and building another structure that resembles it.