Aug. 2--The city has applied for $5 million in federal stimulus funds to help build a new fire house that would allow firefighters to break free of their historic but condemned home at the corner of Main Street and Asbury Avenue.

Fire Chief Kevin Keddy said the application for the federal Assistance to Firefighters Fire Station Construction grant was sent in by the July deadline.

Written by Fire Capt. Thomas Gironda, the application details the history of a building that was built for horse-drawn steamers and opened on July 1, 1900.

"This project proposes to replace an aging, unsafe, virtually uninhabitable structure that does not comply with any of the requirements for a fire and EMS (emergency medical services) facility," the application states.

"We want to fast-track this, absolutely," Keddy said Thursday. "We should start hearing about the grants at the end of September or early October. We're hoping to be successful. This station has been condemned. A structural engineer let us move back in here contingent on our seeking to build a new station."

That was in 2006, when state Department of Labor and city construction officials ordered the old-fashioned red-brick building with its dormer third-floor windows evacuated because of unsafe structural problems.

The city spent about $100,000 to shore up the building. The firefighters were allowed back in, but not on the third floor where they had their meeting room and rows of single beds that the chief believes may have come out of city rooming houses in the 1940s.

"Everyone loves it, but it's way beyond its life span," said Firefighter Eric Porter, president of the firefighters union. "They needed a new firehouse 50 years ago."

According to the city's application, the fire station "has a history of citations as unsafe, uninhabitable and unsound conditions that began in the late 1960s when the station was damaged by a fire."

The city plans to build a new station for its 55 firefighters at a cost of between $7.9 million and $8.3 million on vacant land a few blocks away on Langford Street between First and Second avenues. That estimate does not include the cost of the land. A city appraisal this year placed that value at $615,000.

The proposed site has long been eyed for a new firehouse, which the city has sought for years. This year, Ocean Grove architect Stephen J. Carlidge drew up plans for a new facility of 27,493 square feet. The existing station is 16,000 square feet.