MOOSIC — After just over one year and about $6 million, Moosic’s new emergency services building is nearly complete to soon house the police and fire departments under one modernized roof.
The Greenwood Hose Company is already well underway with its move into the new, $6.1 million emergency services building at 3727 Birney Ave., directly behind its previous, now-demolished firehouse. The Moosic Police Department will follow suit as work continues on its half of the 18,000-plus-square-foot building, with Mayor Bob Bennie anticipating the entire building being finished by the end of November.
The borough broke ground in August 2024.
During a tour Wednesday, Police Chief Rick Janesko, Fire Chief Chuck Molinaro and Bennie pointed to a slew of improvements from their previous buildings, including giving the borough room to expand its emergency services as the town grows, modern facilities as incentives to help recruit new police and firefighters, safer conditions for first responders, and even amenities to help with morale and mental health.
Vehicles from the Greenwood Hose Company occupy the Moosic emergency services building Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Moosic police Chief Rick Janesko stands for a photograph outside of the borough’s new emergency services building on Birney Ave. Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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Vehicles from the Greenwood Hose Company occupy the Moosic emergency services building Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The station gives Moosic’s Fire Department its first new headquarters in nearly 50 years, and for the Moosic Police Department, it is their first purpose-built police station in a century, with the department currently operating out of rented space above a body shop at 820 Springbrook Ave. after toxic mold shut down their previous police station in May 2022. That station was a former veterinarian’s office donated to the borough and converted for police use.
As construction winds down, Bennie said the project is currently under its $6.1 million budget, and officials hope to meet the budgeted amount without exceeding it.
The project received $3 million in federal funding, $1 million in state funding, $300,000 from Lackawanna County and $300,000 from Geisinger. Moosic is also contributing $1.5 million.
The borough value engineered the project, and Janesko and Molinaro have carefully overseen it to ensure the borough doesn’t go over its budget or spend money on anything it doesn’t need, Bennie said.
“The thing we’ve been super sensitive to is it’s all taxpayer money, other than the money that Geisinger donated,” he said. “We’ve been very acutely aware of being wise.”
Fire Department
Speaking against a backdrop of fire apparatus already in the new building, Molinaro expects to finish the move in about two weeks.
Vehicles from the Greenwood Hose Company occupy the Moosic emergency services building Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
To avoid slowing down construction, crews tore down the former firehouse in July, and the Fire Department has since been working through a phased move-in, Molinaro said. Their old firehouse was 47 years old when it was ripped down, he said.
The new building maintains their centralized location in Moosic, with the Montage Mountain area and lower Moosic roughly the same distance away, Molinaro said.
Firefighters also no longer have to stop traffic on Birney Avenue to back their vehicles into the firehouse, he said. The new building has drive-through bays, allowing them to pull in from Winfield Avenue and exit onto Birney Avenue.
The building additionally gives the department room to expand and allows it to react to new safety standards, which Molinaro said he hopes will benefit membership by renewing interest with old members and generating interest with new ones.
The volunteer Fire Department has 25 active firefighters on its roster, he said.
The new garage doors are 14 feet high to accommodate larger, modern firefighting vehicles, compared to their previous building’s 10-foot-tall doors, Molinaro said.
The new building was a major factor in Moosic recently adding a ladder truck to its fleet by giving the department space to store the vehicle, he said, explaining it was sorely needed in Moosic with its expansion of larger buildings, multiple-story hotels and million-square-foot warehouses.
A new locker room for firefighters has special air filters that degrade carcinogens clinging to their turnout gear after fires, and the HVAC system is designed to ensure air from the room doesn’t go to the rest of the building, he said. Those follow modern National Fire Protection Association standards, he said.
Lockers are used by Greenwood Hose Company firefighters in the Moosic emergency services building Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Elsewhere in the building, a crew room with a kitchen, TV and large upholstered chairs gives firefighters a place to relax and eat together, Molinaro said.
The kitchen for use by the fire department inside of Moosic’s emergency services building on Birney Ave. Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Bennie hopes the space gives the first responders a place to unwind and decompress when they return from traumatic calls. The borough also works with the Geisinger Behavioral Health Center to provide professional assistance if they need it, he said.
They will also install a gym for first responders, and there’s a sleeping area with bunk beds, Molinaro said. He doesn’t plan to staff the department overnight, but in the event of inclement weather like snowstorms or flooding, Molinaro can ask some firefighters to stay to respond to emergencies.
Bunk beds are available to emergency personnel in the Moosic emergency services building Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
“Couldn’t be happier,” the fire chief said of the project and sharing space with the Police Department. “Consolidation is the buzzword everywhere in government, and this is bringing two entities together.”
Police Department
After moving from a converted veterinarian’s office to rented space above a body shop, Janesko was enthusiastic about moving his officers into a purpose-built police station that they had a hand in designing.
“It’s a nice accommodation, sure, but it’s not home,” he said of the rented space. “This will give them everything they need to do their job.”
Janesko does not have an exact time frame as to when he’ll move his officers in, explaining he does not want to rush.
Just like the Fire Department, the new Police Department adds numerous amenities for officers, including a spacious patrol room, an interview room for victims, two interrogation rooms, two holding cells, male and female locker rooms with bathrooms and showers, an evidence room with special ventilation for strong-smelling drugs like marijuana, an armorer’s room to store and maintain police weapons, a decompression room for officers, and a sally port to safely bring people in custody into the station, according to Janesko.
Although it was empty on Wednesday, the patrol room will soon have 10 workstations donated by the Lackawanna County district attorney’s office, Janesko said. District Attorney Brian Gallagher said Thursday he is honored to help Moosic police and the community. The DA’s office paid for the computers using money seized from drug dealers in its drug forfeiture account, Gallagher said.
Moosic police Chief Rick Janesko discusses the new patrol room in the borough’s new emergency services building on Birney Ave. Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The room is already lined with mounts for TVs that will display live feeds of various borough cameras as well as information from the Lackawanna County 911 Center, Janesko said.
Moosic has 11 full-time officers and two part-time, and Janesko anticipates hiring more officers as the borough grows.
“It’s a game changer,” Janesko said of the new building, hoping it means officers enjoy coming to work.
A decompression room with light green walls will be a quiet space with no TVs or phones for officers or victims who need to be alone, Janesko said.
“You’re having a bad day, you saw a bad accident,” he said. “Come in here … you need to decompress.”
The department worked with Arcadia Healthcare to design its holding cells to ensure prisoners can’t hurt themselves or damage the room while confined, he said.
A training/community/meeting room will also serve as a future voting location, Bennie said.
The police department’s community room in the Moosic emergency services building Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The emergency services building is the largest EMS investment in Lackawanna County, and it wouldn’t be possible without donations and grant funding, Bennie said. In addition to the DA’s office and Geisinger, Scranton Products donated the lockers and bathroom partitions, Dunbar Evergreen Landscaping is doing the landscaping for free, and former U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, state Reps. Jim Haddock and Bridget Kosierowski, and state Sen. Marty Flynn helped the town secure grant funding, Bennie said. His predecessor, Mayor James Segilia, also helped initiate the project, he said.
It’s a “once-in-a-multigeneration kind of project,” Bennie said.
“It’s a jewel for the community,” he said, calling it a state-of-the-art facility. “Two of the toughest jobs in the borough, Police Department and the Fire Department, nothing better than them having the right tools and the right facility.”
Originally Published: October 16, 2025 at 5:06 PM EDT