Police present more details on proposed new facility

Police Chief B. J. Wilkinson presented a Feasibility Study for city council members Tuesday to again demonstrate the need for a larger, more centrally-located facility to accommodate the growing needs of Sidney’s police department.

The study, conducted by Carlson West Povondra Architects, Baker & Associates and Voorhis & Associates, sought to evaluate the current physical conditions of the Police Department facility and to determine the department’s space needs. It concluded that neither the current facility nor its location are adequate to meet either current or future needs of the Department or the public it serves.

The three paths for improvement considered by the Feasibility Study include renovating the current building, re-purposing a larger, existing structure, and constructing an entirely new facility.

The current facility, originally a fast-food restaurant, hosts a range of unfavorable conditions. Outside, public entry to the building is ambiguous, causing confusion for people seeking access; walkways are deteriorating and are unsatisfactory for individuals with disabilities, and police vehicles are left open to vandalism and adverse weather.

Geographically, according to the study, the building is not ideally situated. Based on city growth toward the east, the current location in the western part of town is not conducive to fast response times or public access. Currently, a downtown police car with lights and sirens on—even bypassing stop lights and stop signs—takes about seven minutes to reach interstate locations.

Wilkinson believes that time should be cut in half. He cited a recent example when a holdup alarm at a bank had gone off, and the closest police car took seven minutes to reach the scene.

“I don’t know if you can imagine what it would be like to have a gun pointed at you for seven minutes, but that’s a long time to have a gun pointed at you,” he said.

The interior of the building is no better. Among other issues, law enforcement personnel have virtually no space where the public cannot gain access. That includes command staff offices, records, the staff break area and the armory, posing security threats for staff, records, witnesses and victims. Storage space is so limited that two outdoor sheds serve to house records and supplies that no longer fit in the building.

“We process evidence on the same table that we do interviews at, and sometimes eat our lunch at,” Wilkinson said.

The building has no dedicated area for processing evidence, which is stored in basement lockers underneath plumbing. If the pipes were to leak, evidence and police property could be damaged. Restroom facilities are severely outdated, partially inoperable, and shared by the public and staff.

Renovating the current building would not seem to solve enough of the problems.

“Now you could say, ‘Sure, we can change the way that the current PD works—we can gut it, we can start over, we can rebuild the inside of it,’ absolutely we could,” Wilkinson said, “but we’d still have an old building with a facelift.”

Re-purposing a different building poses obstacles as well. Out of three buildings looked at by the consultants for the study, the best option was the current Wheat Belt facility, which will be put up for sale in the upcoming months. While the larger size of this building is attractive, it would require complete renovation. Renovation costs coupled with the purchase price are estimated to total $4.8 million.

“That’s a significant price tag, and we recognize that,” Wilkinson said.

Additionally, as with the current Police Department building just down the street, the western location of the Wheat Belt facility is not optimal.

The last option presented to the council was that the city consider constructing an entirely new and centrally-located facility. Constructing a new building on city land would be more cost effective, as there would be no purchase price for a new site. The estimated cost is $3.7 million—about a million dollars less than re-purposing the Wheat Belt building.

“I’ve been preaching all along, that if we’re gonna do anything at all, we need to spend the tax dollars once, we need to spend them wisely,” Wilkinson said. “So that, we not only spend them for today, we spend them for the next 30 years. And we spend them one time.”

The location proposed by the Feasibility Study for the new construction is a three-acre lot east of Legion Park on Fort Sidney road. The benefits of this location include its central placement within the City with arterial road access to all points, the fact that there would be minimal or no costs to acquire the land, and room for expansion.

Wilkinson mentioned the possibility that the facility could have on-site development opportunities for shared space with other police agencies, as renters or long-term leasers to help defray costs.

As for funding the project, some ideas Wilkinson shared included bonds that could be issued, an assignment of sales tax revenue, and land exchange between governmental entities to reduce overall cost.

“I guess we need to decide, you guys need to decide, as a governing body, whether or not you believe that this is what we need to be pursuing,” he said. “And if so, how do you want us to proceed?”

The Council agreed that it may be in the best interests of the City and Police Department to construct a new facility. Councilman Chris Gay stated it was obvious that the current facilities are “wholly inadequate.”

“I don’t want to sound too tenacious about this,” Wilkinson said, “but if we are at least in some semblance of agreement that what we currently have is not suitable, then we need to move forward. I don’t want this to go idle.”

The Council recommended that Chief Wilkinson consider other sites that may be suitable for construction if the proposed location was not suitable, while they try to gauge interest on the county and state levels for a shared facility and look into funding options. At budget time, the Council will be in a better position to take more concrete action.