The Cambria Community Healthcare District is looking to build a new facility. Already, $1 million has been secured to construct a new ambulance station right next to the current one off Main Street.
“Those people who walk through this building can see how necessary it is to replace this structure,” said John Linn, Linn’s Restaurant owner.
Ambulances are currently parked outside the building, but the new plan would include a garage that would not only protect the ambulances but the medical equipment as well.
The project is estimated to cost a total of $6 million with $1 million in federal funds already secured.
“It’s going to be a place in which it can provide rest for our first responders, a place in which we can protect our ambulances from the weather and ocean air and a place where we can provide Cambria with public safety,” said Jimmy Panetta, U.S. Representative (CA-19).
State and county leaders on Thursday toured the 67-year-old facility which Cambria Community Healthcare District Operations Manager Tim Nurge worries won’t be operational much longer due to its age. The healthcare district wants to tear down the current space and replace it with a modular building.
“I do know that as older buildings are constructed, they do come with older hazards and if we do any major work on the station or something happens to the building, it would be a big hit to us,” Nurge said.
The ambulance station serves the community of Cambria and as far north as Big Sur with Nurge saying paramedics respond to an average of six calls per day.
“My own family has had multiple occasions where these guys have come out into our house and were of service to us and haul us somewhere, myself included,” Linn said.
A bond measure will be placed on the November ballot in an effort to secure the remaining $5 million needed for the project.
“If we can go ahead now and build the structure so that these people have a place to rest between calls, I think that’s well worth our effort,” Linn said.
It’s the second time a measure for a new ambulance facility will go before voters after Measure G-22 failed in 2022.
If the bond measure is approved by voters this November, construction could then begin.
