Fire Safety, Community, Food Stability, History
The Mosier Community Center, or just “Mosier Center,” will be a multi-purpose building serving both the entire Mosier Valley region and the increasing number of visitors, and outdoor activity enthusiasts.
It will provide urgently-needed new facilities for Mosier Fire and City Hall, gathering space for the community, and a permanent public presence for historic photos and artifacts.
Regional Fire & EMS Support
Fire is an increasing risk to our area. Mosier Fire serves almost 2000 people and provides extensive aid to our neighboring fire districts, including the 2021 fires that threatened the Google data center and the Warm Springs reservation.
Our own community has experienced multiple close calls in the past 11 years alone: Microwave Fire of 2010, the Oil Train Derailment of 2016, the Memaloose I & II Fires of 2018 and Mosier Creek Fires in 2020 – and Mosier Fire hosted command centers for most of those conflagrations. We’ve had the national news media trucks parked on 1st Street more times than we’d like. Right now, our Mosier Valley Volunteer Firefighters work and train in two outdated buildings. The location is also a key communications check point in local emergency plans.
Mosier Fire has hosted several conflagrations in the last decade including the Microwave Fire in 2011, the Oil Train Derailment in 2016, and two separate Memaloose fires in 2018. With growing fire dangers in the area we are likely to host more in the coming decades. Mosier Fire also regularly assists accidents along 1-84, at rest stops and within Memaloose State Park.
Mosier Center will provide much needed space for ongoing fire and medical training, and give them greater ability to protect our community, while providing emergency shelter and help for fires, floods, power outages, and earthquakes. Oh, and a place to clean their equipment without having to take it home. It is also slated to be the first certified Net Zero fire station in the country.
Community
Mosier Center will provide a food pantry, emergency shelter, gathering space, and emerging small business opportunities for our diverse and growing community. The City’s Hispanic community is served by our local school, a food truck, and three businesses. Their contributions to our community are culturally broad and have proven entrepreneurial and a benefit to all.
This building will facilitate additional local economic development through a community gathering space and commercial kitchen. It will also provide a Food Pantry & Space for Emergency Shelter to support our community in times of need.
Food Stability
The Mosier Center will include a commercial kitchen with flex space for developing farm-to-table food products from our Agriculture community as well as innovative creative services. The outdoor area is designed to be used as a permanent farmers market location for up to 6 months of the year.
And the building will include a visitors’ welcome center to provide information, restrooms, guides to trails and local businesses, and other services.
100 years ago three of our most iconic structures were added to Mosier: the school, the Fruit Growers and the bridge on Hwy 30 crossing Mosier Creek. We see Mosier Center not only as a way to boost the vibrancy of our main street today but as our gift to the community of Mosier in 2120.
Connection to History
Mosier Center will give us a permanent place to display Mosier Valley Historical Society’s historic photo and artifact collections, along with the interviews and performances from Voices From the Past during the Centennial celebration in 2014.
