BATON ROUGE - Decades after being built, a historic piece of property is getting all spruced up.

Supplies and construction materials have replaced the fire trucks at Baton Rouge Fire Station 12 on Government Street. It's been that way for several months, as firefighters have moved out to allow the 43-year-old station to get a facelift.

"Redoing the tile, redoing the cabinets, redoing the bathrooms in the station... More so modernizing the station, bringing it up to do," Baton Rouge Fire Department spokesperson Mark Miles said.

Better known as the "Big House," Fire Station 12 is BRFD's largest station within reach of downtown, north Baton Rouge, and Old South Baton Rouge in mere minutes.

"It pretty much stayed in its original state, and so right the now the much-needed upgrades are being done and the guys are real excited about it," Miles said. "They can't wait to get back. They are homesick for it. They missed the camaraderie that they once had all working together."

And while the doors have been closed to take care of some typical wear and tear, those that call station 12 home have been shifted to other stations across the city. BRFD says they were strategically placed so that response times didn't suffer.

But they didn't want some of the nostalgia of the building to suffer either.

"Station 12 is one of our only stations in the city to still have poles that we slide down, so when they make a run and they are up there they can still hit the poles. That's something we didn't want to change."

As summer creeps into its final stretch, so does Station 12's turnaround.

"This being the largest [station], it's a little more important."

In addition to work inside, the roof and doors have been upgraded. BRFD says Fire Station 12 expects to open in September.