City of Virginia first responders move into brand new Public Safety Building

VIRGINIA, Minn.– After more than 120 years, Virginia first responders finally have a new place to call home, and it’s filled with upgrades that were long overdue.

“It’s just extremely surreal moving into a brand new, modern fire station. I honestly, when I started here, I didn’t know if that would happen in my career,” said Jonassen.

Deputy Fire Chief Erik Jonassen said until today, fire, police, and EMS in Virginia operated out of a building that was incredibly outdated.

“Our old building was completed in 1903 it was originally designed and built for horse drawn engines and pumpers,” said Jonassen.

The Public Safety building was a work in progress for over seven years, with setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Monday was their official move-in day.

“We’re leaving a building where our first new engine has about two inches of clearance on each side of the mirrors to get out, which does impede response times,” said Jonassen. “We’re not directly pulling out onto a city street like we were at the old building. We have 100-foot apron that we pull out onto.”

The demand for services has grown significantly over the years. We’re told; their EMS response area is over 650 square miles.

“2025, our busiest time, our busiest year. Call wise, we responded to over 5200 calls for service, about 88% of them being EMS, and the rest being fire vehicle crashes, technical rescue calls,” said Jonassen.

And now, the team is looking forward to a future of smoother operations.

“It means the world to all the firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, law enforcement officers to be in this new, modern building,” beamed Jonassen.