The Reservation of the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), a federally recognized sovereign Indian tribe, extends to both the Arizona and California side of the majestic Colorado River. While the primary economic activity on the CRIT Reservation has always been agriculture, recent ventures into diversified businesses and tourism, including a new casino, have bolstered economic growth, thereby creating the need for a new state-of-the-art fire safety substation to serve the community.

Deemed a top priority by the CRIT Tribal Council, the vision for the facility was to meet current and future operational needs for at least the next decade, as well as to be a point of pride for CRIT community members. The resulting fire safety substation is a multifunctional facility that includes a fire station, administration space, community meeting rooms, crew quarters, an emergency operation center, triage and stabilization clinic and six apparatus bays.

The unforgiving desert temperatures, often in excess of 120 degrees Fahrenheit, not to mention year-round high winds and sandstorms (the area of the Western Arizona desert regularly sees wind speeds greater than 25 mph winds with gusts of 75 mph) created a unique challenge for the new construction’s project team, but environmental extremes were just one consideration. Additional factors such as a need to meet energy efficiency guidelines, a requirement for extreme durability and minimal long-term maintenance, as well as tight scheduling, called for a creative solution, one that combined a Star Building Systems custom-engineered steel structure and metal panels with conventional materials.

Half of the building—the auxiliary portion for the fire engines and training areas—was a custom-engineered metal structure and the other half with all the offices and support areas was a conventional frame, all under one roof. Arizona Corporate Builders, which specializes in custom pre-engineered metal buildings, erected the metal structure that housed the apparatus bays, and installed the metal roof on the entire structure. Overall, Arizona Corporate Builders installed approximately 13,300 square feet of 24-gauge BattenLok® HS metal roof panels. Polar White was chosen for the standing seam roof to maximize reduction of solar heat gain. The further appeal of a standing seam roof here is that it is a long-lasting and low-maintenance roof system for a relatively reasonable amount of money.

As to the benefits of the Star PEMB for this project, Greg St. Clair, president of Tempe-based Arizona Corporate Builders, LLC, remarked that economics, sustainability, durability, and flexibility all came into play, as well as aesthetics since Star was able to include the specific panels needed as part of its package.

From Star’s perspective, the project had a lot going on with it due to different angles, textured surfaces and color contrast. The Star system incorporated wind beam bracing instead of a conventional portal frame or X-bracing due to clearance requirements.

The well-received project, completed in 2019, was a big success all around—with the result a distinctive and elegant design with reasonable construction costs and low long-term maintenance needs.