Maple Valley Fire and Life Safety is planning to commemorate the heroism of the first responders during the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedy in New York City by building a memorial outside of Fire Station 81.

Jennifer Szabo of Pacific Outdoor Living, an Issaquah based company, designed the memorial.

The centerpiece of the memorial is a piece of steel from the World Trade Center.

In 2013, Maple Valley Firefighter Ryan Carpenter wrote a letter to the commissioner of the New York Fire Department asking for a piece of the World Trade Center to display in a public memorial.

The request was approved and now Maple Valley Fire and Life Safety owns a piece of that history.

The design, which was presented before the City Council at Monday night’s meeting, is two pentagon-shaped columns with the piece of steel suspended in between. Two flood lights will be placed inside the columns to replicate the 9/11 memorial at ground zero in Manhattan.

There will also be a bench constructed on one side of the columns for people to sit.

Maple Valley Fire plans to have a ceremony on Sept. 11, 2015 once construction is finished.

The cost of the project was estimated to be about $50,000. But, with the help of volunteers and firefighters pitching in to help, Deputy Chief David O’Brien said they got that cost down to about $25,000.

Maple Valley Fire is prepared to contribute up to $15,000 to fund the memorial, which leaves about $10,000 still needed.

A GoFundMe account was set up Tuesday morning to collect donations from the community to fund the rest of the project.