SOUTHWEST HARBOR – After a wait of more than a decade, the fire department should finally move out of its cramped in-town home and into some new, spacious digs this fall.

The Board of Selectman voted this week to accept a bid for construction of the new firehouse, which will be built for $1.07 million by the Sheridan Corp. of Portland.

The new 10,000-square-foot Main Street firehouse has been a long time coming, according to the town manager.

“They’ve been looking for a firehouse for quite some time,” Ken Minier said Thursday. “It’s too small, it’s very crowded – you can barely get the trucks in. They just need a bigger facility.”

The town fire department, which responded to 147 assistance calls during 2005, now is located underneath the town offices and next door to the police department.

It was difficult finding construction companies to put in bids for the project, budgeted by the town at $1.13 million, the town manager said. Minier said that he hopes the construction will begin within the next month, and will be completed by late October or November.

“It would be kind of nice to have November voting at the firehouse,” he said. “That would be a nice way to introduce it.”

If the building is completed on schedule, it would be especially appreciated by Minier, who announced his impending resignation earlier this week.

He has served as town manager in Southwest Harbor for 14 years and in municipal government for 36 years. He will step down in August 2007, which he thinks will give the board of selectmen time to find and train a new manager.

“The fire department has just been so long in coming,” he said. “That would probably be my number one big thing, seeing the firehouse built and used.”

Also high on his list of hoped-for accomplishments are the creation of a new facility for the police department and getting the town’s ongoing water quality problems squared away.

Minier has no precise plans yet for his life after retirement. “I love Southwest Harbor. I really do,” he said. “It’s a great place. But I need to do something new.”

The position of town manager, he said, has become “a younger person’s game.”

“There’s so many rules and regulations,” Minier said. “I think you have to eat, drink and sleep this stuff to keep up.”