Riverhead ambulance unveils plans for new headquarters building on Osborn Avenue

Officials unveiled plans Thursday for a new, larger Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps headquarters on Osborn Avenue. 

For years RVAC officials have sought a larger facility as both the organization’s membership and the number of calls they respond to have grown. The organization has 150 medical providers — only 30 of which are paid — and responds to around 5,500 calls each year, RVAC President Garrett Lake said. Its current headquarters, built in 1989, does not have adequate space to house its emergency vehicles or for the organization to train new members, among other deficiencies, Lake said. 

A new two-story headquarters built on the same Osborn Avenue site would fix that, Lake told the Town Board during its work session Thursday morning, where he and other RVAC board members presented its site plan and renderings.

The proposed 16,600-square-foot building would have bunk rooms for people working overnight shifts, provide office space for RVAC officers and ambulance district staff, and have dedicated units to decontaminate ambulance personnel from infectious diseases — all things the existing headquarters lacks.

Lake said in an interview that the estimated cost of the new headquarters is $6 million to $7 million, not including the cost of the parking lot. Lake asked the Town Board to move forward with issuing a request for proposals to construct the new headquarters, which would give a more accurate picture of the total cost. Board members agreed.

“This significant increase speaks volumes about the growing demand of our emergency medical services and highlights the need for a facility that can adequately support our operations,“ Lake said. 

While the parcel on which the current RVAC headquarters sits on is “limited in size,” it is in a “central location for response times,” Council Member Ken Rothwell, the Town Board’s liaison to RVAC, said during the work session. The town had considered multiple options for a new RVAC facility over the last few years, including the former Kmart building, but the headquarters’ current location, just off of Route 58, is thought optimal for servicing the whole town.

The new headquarters will be able to store 10 vehicles. The current facility can only hold three vehicles, while other vehicles must be stored outside “exposing them to the elements and increasing risk of equipment failing and compromising medical integrity,” Lake said. Ambulances are costly to repair, Lake added, and keeping them indoors will make them last longer.

The new headquarters would also have a room where RVAC can train new members. Rothwell, a volunteer firefighter, said it is important to hold training sessions at RVAC headquarters, where its members respond to calls; for the last few years, training new RVAC members has been held at other town facilities, like Town Hall and the senior center in Aquebogue.

Lake said beds at the headquarters are important to volunteers who cover the overnight shift, but may have to work in the morning. RVAC “thrives off of” student members, and having places in the headquarters where they can study while they wait for a call is important. The current headquarters only has a small kitchen and small lounge area where members can wait while on call.

Lake said the current headquarters does not meet the standards of state and federal laws. The new headquarters will — complying, perhaps most importantly, with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lake said. Lake expressed concerns about the safety and security of the current headquarters, which he said the new building would address.

The Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps is a nonprofit RVAC group founded in 1978 that contracts with the Riverhead Ambulance District to respond to medical emergencies within an ambulance district that takes in most of the town’s 78 square miles, including a large number of senior communities, a regional retail hub and some of the town’s most densely populated areas. The Town Board is the governing body of the Riverhead Ambulance District.

Ambulance services in the Wading River Fire District are provided by the Wading River Fire Department, not RVAC.

The town and RVAC want the project to have a “very minimal impact to the taxpayers,” Rothwell said. He said the facility can be paid with revenue the ambulance service receives from billing patients’ insurance companies and RVAC fundraising efforts. Officials discussed bonding for the initial cost and paying off the bond’s debt service with those revenues. 

RVAC began billing insurance companies for the cost of all ambulance transports within the Riverhead Ambulance District in 2023. It has been billing for transports related to motor vehicle accidents since 2017. They started billing to generate revenue to purchase essential equipment. 

Town Financial Administrator Jeanette DiPaola said the town is working on its next contract with RVAC. She said the town has been budgeting to repair ambulances and purchase new ones. The town and RVAC need to continue its “great” communication to have a plan going forward. 

“This is a great day. It’s a long time coming,” said Supervisor Tim Hubbard, a retired Riverhead Police officer and former RVAC member who, as a council member, was the Town Board’s liaison to the ambulance company. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time, and now everything’s starting to kind of line up.”

“I love the design and what’s important to me — and you hit the nail on the head — it’s not a Taj Mahal. I have seen other ambulance headquarters around the county and some of them — maybe they’re very wealthy districts — but to me, it was a lot of overkill,” Hubbard added. “This is exactly what you need, and you guys did not put in for all the frills and everything that you could have. So I really appreciate that, as I’m sure the taxpayers do also.”

RVAC would be without a central headquarters for the estimated six months it would take to construct the building, Lake said. Rothwell said he would talk with Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski about the possibility of RVAC setting up a temporary base in a section of the highway department yard, in addition to the substation it has in Jamesport.