MORE: Kettering seeks $6.9 million police station renovation, addition
City Manager Mark Schwieterman said the project will add an additional floor for office space for the chief, captains and administrative staff.
After the meeting, he said passage of the initial funding request will allow the city to enter into a design services contract in 2018 and by mid-2019 be ready to put the renovation project out to bid.
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“We anticipate because it is a renovation and they will have to work around our existing operations that it will take about 18 months to complete construction,” Schwieterman said. “So, I would say at this point that the earliest we would see a completed product would be in 2021.”
Schwieterman feels an update to the police facility is necessary.
“Certainly, we need some renovations to our police department. It has been a very long time since we’ve had an overhaul in that facility,” Schwieterman said. “New HVAC and mechanical equipment is necessary, and we also need to change the space utilization because our police station doesn’t operate in the same manner that it operated 30 years ago.”
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Modernization with an eye towards the future is something he feels will make the new design a benefit to the community.
“I think it will be a benefit to the public in that we will bringing some access to the ground level of this plaza. But also, certainly a benefit to our operations as we will build a new station that is built around the way we police today,” Schwieterman said.
The latest effort to improve public safety facilities comes on the heels of a multi-million dollar overhaul of the fire department. The city went from seven fire stations to four, with the Dorothy Lane station to be finished this year.
“In total, the fire department project is roughly $30 million for those new stations and the equipment,” Schwieterman said.
No resident spoke against the project Tuesday, and Mayor Don Patterson said that the community expects city leaders to make smart investments to improve facilities.
“One of the reasons that people stay here in Kettering and don’t want to leave is because we make investments to improve what we have here in the community,” he said.
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