Fire Station #15

Fire Station 15 sits at 1000 Ocean Avenue and doubles as Battalion 9 headquarters, occupying a portion of a large parcel it shares with the Balboa Reservoir's south basin, the Phelan Loop and the Ingleside branch library — so not every permit filed on the block is the station's work. Its own history is one of small, awkward sums. In the mid-1990s the Board had already appropriated $640,758 for seismic improvements when the Budget Committee was told the station's roof also needed replacing; a supplemental $69,300 brought the project to $710,058, and the Bureau of Architecture put the work out to bid jointly with Fire Station 38's, selecting the joint venture of Gomez and Chapot as low bidder. The station has also earned its keep in unexpected ways: in 2002 the Board approved a lease of cellular transmitter space here to Metro PCS, alongside Stations 6 and 40. And it has absorbed other districts' work — in 2003 the Finance and Audits Committee heard that during the closure of Fire Station 33, Engine 33 would operate out of Station 15 at Ocean and Phelan, staffed each day by the crew of whichever fire truck happened to be down for repair. Its own recent permits are a $410,000 reroofing and the replacement of a 20-kilowatt generator with an 80-kilowatt unit carrying 72 hours of fuel.