OMI team picked for fire station museum project
A team led by OMI Architects has been selected to advance the £1.4m Greater Manchester Fire Service Museum project to a Heritage Lottery Fund stage two submission.
The museum has been housed in the drill hall building at the Maclure Road fire station site in Rochdale since 1983, but will be enhanced significantly by the project. The ground floor of the main art deco fire station building will be renovated and adapted, almost quadrupling the size of museum floorspace to more than 10,000 sq ft.
The scheme will create a fully accessible museum, with new visitor services and a café, providing a permanent home for the Greater Manchester Fire Service Museum collection and archive. The museum will be open six days a week, rather than just on Fridays as is the case at present.
Key stakeholders include Rochdale Council, which is carrying out studies to consider additional ways the space can be used, and Greater Manchester Fire Service Museum Trust. A first round application for £108,000 was approved in September last year.
Andy James, director of OMI Architects, said: “We are delighted to have been selected to work on this prestigious project at a key moment in the history of the building. The opportunity of creating a permanent curated space to showcase the history of the Greater Manchester Fire Service is one that we are very proud of.”
The professional team includes Alan Gardner Associates as historic building surveyor; Poole Dick Associates as cost consultant; DP Squared as structural engineer and Viridian Consulting on M&E and public health services.