Across the street from where Puget Sound Energy's planned liquified natural gas plant is under construction stands a 90-year-old fire station surrounded by overgrown grass.
It's styled like a low-slung, one-story bungalow, notable for its Hispanic-inspired architecture. For about a decade it's sat quietly, used only for storage.
That might change soon.
With planned and existing industrial, chemical and fossil-fuel activity on the Tideflats, there's a need for more public safety services, including a fully operational fire station. The LNG plant cannot open until a fire station is opened nearby. "To meet the (requirements of) the environmental impact statement for the PSE facility, we need to have a facility ready by the time they're operational," Tacoma Fire Chief Jim Duggan said recently. "Following 2012, our presence on the Tideflats was reduced essentially to zero."