In the coming months, the city council will decide if, when, and where a new headquarters for the police and fire departments will be built.
In October 2023, the city council commissioned a $40,000 study by Davis Design to assess the need for space. and look at feasible sites for a new public safety building.
Erin Dobesh of Davis Design presented the findings to the council Tuesday during a work session.
Dobesh said the current public safety building, converted from the 1956 Memorial Hospital building, is insufficient for the needs of the departments.
Police Chief Steve Reeves said there are several areas in which they failed a recent audit; the most significant are the physical security of the building and the evidence storage.
Reeves said currently, officers have no choice but to walk those who have been arrested through offices that should be secure. Reeves said the evidence room is an old hospital room that doesn't have proper ventilation; you smell marijuana as you walk towards it.
The study found the departments need a building with approximately 71,396 sq. ft. to facilitate a growth in staff for both departments during the next 10 years. That would give the police department room for nine new officers and the fire department would have room for four new firefighters.
Davis Design used data from January 2014-December 2023, when there were approximately 30,000 calls for service -- to map out response times to help determine site feasibility. Initially, Reeves and Fire Chief Dennis Thompson gave the consultants three locations for a new building that they thought would be best -- just east of Dunkin Donuts, west of Starbucks, and the existing location.
These three areas had the best response times.
The existing location does not have the needed space, and the city does not own the other two locations. This led to a fourth site -- the southeast corner of the Industrial Park off of East Philip. The city owns both parcels there that would accommodate the needed 71,000 square feet.
The proposed layout would be a one-story building, which Thompson said would increase efficiency in both departments.
The work session provided the city council with information from the study, and in the coming months, more meetings will be held to discuss the next steps.