Police Seek Expanded Space For Law Enforcement

By Andrew Gorosko

Armed with a detailed architectural study describing the police department’s space needs in the coming years, the Police Commission plans to meet with the selectmen soon in seeking to have police space expansion listed as a priority item in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).

It remains unclear if such a project would involve expanding the existing police station, refitting an existing building for police station use, or constructing a new building to house a police station.

Police Commission members agreed on September 2 to seek having police facilities expansion listed as a $10 million item on the CIP.

The CIP lists many town capital improvement projects planned for the future, including road improvements, town industrial park development, fire truck acquisition, recreation improvements, school building improvements, open space acquisition, and the construction of a new animal shelter, among many others.

Police Commission members plan to meet on September 15 with a representative of the firm that performed the police space needs study. Commission members would then attend a September 15 selectmen’s meeting to make their case for listing a police space expansion as a CIP item.

Police space needs formerly had been a CIP item, but was removed from the plan by the town.

The building at 3 Main Street where the police station is located is known as Town Hall South. The upper level of the building houses the police station and the town’s emergency communications center. A lower level garage houses some police vehicles.

Police make use of a lower level conference room in the building for various meetings. The lower level of the building also contains offices for the town’s social services department and the parks and recreation department, as well the borough government’s office.

According to the police space needs study prepared by Jacunski Humes Architects, LLC, of Berlin, the total area of Town Hall South is 18,528 square feet, of which 9,904 square feet are on the lower level and 8,624 square feet are on the upper level. The building sits on a 1.2-acre site.

The town occupied the building in 1980, refitting it for use as a police station and office space. The structure had been built in 1950, formerly having served as a farm and construction equipment dealership.

The detailed space needs study quantifies the various activities occurring within a police station, concluding that police will require a facility with 29,500 square feet of gross area to meet future needs. That structure should contain 22,685 net square feet of space, according to the architects. The study projects the police’s space needs out to the year 2030.

Also, the police facility needed in the future should be set on a site at least 2.5 acres to provide adequate room for parking and other exterior activities, according to the architects.

At the September 2 Police Commission session, Police Chief Michael Kehoe told commission members that existing police facilities are inadequate, a view that the panel members have long expressed.

Commission members then broadly discussed whether new police facilities should be located elsewhere, or whether police should seek to obtain property adjacent to 3 Main Street to expand their existing facilities.

Police have long discussed the inadequacy of their current facilities, saying the structure does not meet their law enforcement needs.

During the past decade, the town has made a range of physical improvements at Town Hall South. These include the construction of a garage for police vehicles, the creation of a storage area for the registrars of voters, the installation of drainage devices to improve stormwater control at the site, the construction of an emergency dispatching center, the installation of a new emergency generator, and the refitting of the police station interior to increase office space and provide better storage facilities, among other improvements.