Riverhead ambulance hosts open house Saturday to unveil and discuss plans for its new headquarters

Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps will unveil plans for its new headquarters at an open house Saturday afternoon. 

RVAC is finalizing plans for replacement of its cramped and outdated headquarters with a 16,600-square-foot building providing adequate facilities for its staff of 150 professionals — 110 of which are volunteers — its emergency vehicles, equipment and supplies.

The ambulance company, a private nonprofit founded in 1978 that contracts with the town to provide emergency medical services, has grown to keep pace with the growth of the community. It provides services around the clock, 365 days a year, to 30,000-plus Riverhead residents and innumerable visitors. 

RVAC long ago outgrew its current headquarters, which it moved into in 1989. The number of calls RVAC responds to annually has increased more than 300% since the ambulance company moved in 1989 — from 1,200 in 1989 to nearly 5,000 in 2024. RVAC is on track to answer 6,000 calls this year, according to officials.

The Town of Riverhead Ambulance District, which is governed by the Riverhead Town Board, owns the ambulance headquarters and the land on which it sits. The town built the headquarters and provides repairs and maintenance for the facility. The town, through taxes raised on properties in the ambulance district, provides and repairs ambulances and other vehicles.

The town’s 2003 comprehensive plan recognized and highlighted the headquarters’ problems. It said the building was “already too small to meet the current [in 2003] level of calls, which reached nearly 2,000 in 1999.” Since the 2003 comp plan was adopted, RVAC’s call volume has more than doubled. 

At the time, town planners said the facility “needs at least one more bay, additional storage and office space, training classrooms, parking, and space for equipment and uniform cleaning, which are required under OSHA standards.”  That was 22 years ago. 

But funding an expansion has always been a hurdle the Town of Riverhead lacked the resources to overcome. 

Current plans for a new headquarters, to be built on the same site as the existing facility, will provide six bays deep enough to hold two ambulances each, and a three- story building space for response activities, secure medicine and equipment storage, a decontamination room, training and meeting rooms, bunk rooms, an area where members on duty can read or watch TV while on standby, and a larger kitchen/dining area.

The projected cost of the project is in the range of $8 million to $9 million. 

RVAC, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, has been soliciting donations for the project. Now that it has a steady stream of insurance revenues from a billing program begun on a limited basis in 2017 (for MVA transports only) and expanded to all calls in 2023, the possibility of financing some of the construction costs has become feasible. The ambulance billing revenues can be applied to debt service.

Council Member Ken Rothwell, the Town Board’s liaison to RVAC, said during a Town Board meeting with RVAC officers in January that any borrowing required can have a “very minimal impact to the taxpayers” as a result of billing revenues, coupled with RVAC fundraising efforts.

“We now have the means and permissions necessary to replace our current headquarters with a modern, purpose-built building that will meet our needs now and in the future,” RVAC says on its website.  “We will be able to park all of our emergency vehicles indoors, something we have not been able to do for more than a decade. We will have dedicated decontamination rooms and adequate storage for our equipment and supplies. And our duty crews will have spaces to work, study and relax as they wait for the next call.”

Financing remains tight, RVAC says and it needs to raise additional funds to ensure it will be able to finish the job and upgrade critical emergency equipment. The ambulance corps is asking for the public’s help. All donations will be matched by an anonymous donor, RVAC said. 

RVAC officers and members will be on hand at Saturday’s open house to review the need and plans for the new facility and answer questions about the ambulance corps and its operations.

The open house takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the ambulance headquarters, located at 1111 Osborn Avenue, Riverhead.

Donations can be sent to HQ Fund Drive, Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps, P.O. Box 924, Riverhead NY 11901. 

Donations can also be made online here.

Questions about the fund drive and requests for information on available sponsoring opportunities can be sent to the above address or emailed to: HQFundDrive@RiverheadVAC.com