Alameda County Fire Department plans to replace Fire Station 22 in San Lorenzo, a facility that has served the community since before 1940.
The existing Station 22 is a modest structure by modern firehouse standards. According to the Alameda County Fire Department, the building was constructed before 1940, received an addition in 1963, and now measures just 3,967 square feet. It houses one Type I Engine company and responds to downtown, residential, and business areas of San Lorenzo. The department doesn’t even own the building outright — it leases the station from the San Lorenzo Homeowners Association.
Station 22 began as the firehouse for the San Lorenzo Village Fire Department, which was consolidated into the Eden Consolidated Fire Protection District in 1976. A county environmental review says the station now responds to about 192 emergency calls a month, with average response times of roughly four minutes. The review also identifies accessibility, safety and facility needs as reasons the existing building no longer meets the department’s needs. The county’s project review describes both the station’s history and its current workload.
A State-of-the-Art Replacement Nearby
The fire department’s own programming and feasibility study determined that Station 22 requires replacement, the same source notes. The planned new facility will sit on an empty paved lot roughly three blocks from the current site, rather than being rebuilt in place.
The relocation also required a land-use change. The new site sits within the San Lorenzo Village Center Specific Plan area, where the 2004 plan prohibited fire stations and required site development review for construction exceeding 1,000 square feet. County planning staff proposed amending the plan to allow one publicly owned station there; the Eden Area Municipal Advisory Council recommended the change 5-0, and the Planning Commission recommended approval 7-0. The county’s planning materials lay out the zoning obstacle and proposed remedy.
The department describes the future station as an approximately 7,500-square-foot, single-story building. Construction contractor Overaa Construction, which lists the job as currently in design and preconstruction, describes the goal somewhat differently on its project page, calling it a “state-of-the-art replacement for Fire Station 22 in the growing community of San Lorenzo” and noting the building is designed to house a Type I Engine company — matching what the current station handles today.
Not every account agrees on the new building’s footprint. While the fire department puts the figure at approximately 7,500 square feet, project manager Mack5 lists Station 22 as a 7,700-square-foot, single-story fire station in its own project materials. Both figures come from credible project sources, and the discrepancy remains unresolved.
Part of a Larger Bond-Funded Overhaul
Station 22 isn’t being rebuilt in isolation. Per the fire department, it’s part of the first phase of a broader program funded by Measure X, the ACFD Fire Safety Bond that unincorporated Alameda County voters approved in November 2020. That measure authorizes the department to issue up to $90 million in bonds for fire station repairs, upgrades, and replacements.
The bond program follows an earlier ACFD station replacement: Station 23 in Cherryland, an 11,800-square-foot facility, was completed in 2017 at a total project cost of about $12.16 million. That project predates Measure X, but offers a local point of comparison for the department’s ongoing effort to replace aging facilities. ACFD’s Measure X program history describes the Station 23 project and the broader facilities-planning effort.
The initial phase of that program also covers new stations to replace existing Fire Stations 7 and 25 in San Lorenzo and Castro Valley, the fire department says. The planned replacement for Fire Station 7 is approximately 7,900 square feet and single-story, going up on a vacant parcel next to the current Station 7, with an additional 1,900-square-foot apparatus storage building included in the project’s scope. Fire Station 25, meanwhile, is planned as an approximately 14,000-square-foot, two-story building constructed on the same parcel as the existing station, a project that Mack5 says includes demolishing the old structure and renovating a temporary facility to keep crews operating during construction.
For now, the San Lorenzo replacement project is part of the broader Measure X effort. The department says Measure X is intended to maintain fire and emergency medical services, though specifics on Station 22’s construction schedule, completion date, and total project cost have not yet been detailed publicly.
