Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Will Expand Coverage to Palmetto Bay & Cutler Bay

For months, one of my real estate listings has been under contract to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, pending Village and County approvals. The home is located at 18198 Old Cutler Road, which is basically on the Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay border.

The location of a station house there will lower response times to the surrounding areas, making everyone safer and more likely to survive an emergency.

Following several public information meetings for residents around the location and shortly after the Village of Palmetto Bay approved the zoning, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue came for a site visit to carefully analyze how to transition the single family home over the next few years into what is likely going to be a new fire rescue station there.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Director Scott Mendelsberg (pictured here in the center) explains, "We've had a response issue here for quite some time and this will provide supplemental coverage in the future. There has been explosive growth in the area and more development is projected in the near future that we must account for."

Whenever entering a new neighborhood, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tries to be the best neighbor possible, knowing that residents sometimes have mixed feelings. "Ideally, we might end up in the Palmetto Bay Village Center across the street from a residential area, but if we end up building here we will put up a bunch of visual buffers, in the way of walls and landscaping, that will make sure we are not impacting the surrounding neighbors," added Mendelsberg.

It will be 2019 before anything is actively operating on or near this site and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue assures me they're open to any and all comments about how to best fit in.