Police Station Renovations Under Way

By Andrew Gorosko

Although it’s not apparent from the street, the police station interior looks quite a bit different than it has in the past.

Workmen have completed the first phase of a three-phase project intended to make the building’s interior a better utilized, more efficient space.

The workers have created several “new” rooms in the rear section of the police station, an area that formerly was unfinished space used for storage.

For the past month, a steady stream of workers has marched in and out of the 3 Main Street building with equipment and building materials in hand, transforming what had been a cavernous space at the rear of the building into individual rooms to be used for specific purposes. Sheetrockers put up walls, electricians routed cable, and technicians installed air conditioning equipment.

The construction project is now in its second phase.

The detective bureau, which accommodates seven officers, has moved from its former cramped quarters between the chief’s office and the captain’s office to a spacious new office at the rear of the building. The records department is now temporarily housed in what had been the detective bureau.

This week, workmen installed metal studs in what will become the new dispatching suite, including a dispatching center, office, and kitchenette. The room formerly had been the records unit.

The “combined dispatch center,” which will always be manned by two dispatchers, will have three dispatching posts. The room will centralize all town emergency dispatching facilities – police, fire, and ambulance – in one location.

Currently, police dispatching is done in another smaller room in the police station. Fire and ambulance dispatching currently is done in the town’s emergency communications center in Edmond Town Hall about one-half mile to the north.

Town officials decided last year that centralizing all emergency dispatching facilities will make the process more efficient. The director of emergency communications, a new town position, will oversee operations at the combined dispatch center.

After the new dispatching center is built, workmen plan to convert what until now has served as the police dispatching booth and some adjacent space into new facilities for the police records unit.

After the records unit moves into its new quarters, the police department’s sergeants and lieutenants will occupy the space that the records unit had temporarily used, said Police Chief Michael Kehoe.

Police hope the renovation and reconfiguration of the police station is completed this summer, Chief Kehoe said. Clearheart Construction, Inc., of Bethel is overseeing the project.