Glen Ellyn Police Chief Phil Norton, whose office is one of a handful crammed into a former junior high school’s band room, is overjoyed that trustees hired two firms last week to design and build a new police station.
“Because of the small space we’re in, safety is a big concern,” he said. “We don’t have the space we need to make this a safe facility for our officers, the public we have to interact with and our offenders.”
The new site, which will be located south of Roosevelt Road near Panfish Park, is expected to take about a year and a half to complete. Norton said he hopes ground will be broken before April 1, enabling the police department to move into the new station by spring 2017.
The new building is likely be two stories high and about 30,000 square feet, compared to the current 11,000-square-foot station which occupties a section of the downtown Civic Center, a former junior high school purchased by the village in 1973.It was supposed to be a short-term arrangement because of inadequacies for housing prisoners and storing evidence and records, Norton said..
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A study showed that a police station meant to accommodate the number of police officers for the size of the community had to be somewhere between 37,000 and 45,000 square feet, he said.
The total cost of the station has yet to be determined, but isn’t expected to exceed $12 million. The station will be funded through a bond sale of $13.4 million, with the interest rate not to exceed 7 percent, according to village documents, The remaining money will finance a separate stormwater management project aimed at reducing the flooding at Lake Ellyn.
A selection committee, consisting of Norton and other village officials, reviewed seven teams of contractors and architects before recommending construction firm Leopardo and achitectural firm Dewberry. The firms were unanimously approved by the village board last week.
While the new station, which will be further south of downtown Glen Ellyn, is not as centrally located as the current one, it was not feasible to expand. Police will maintain a small office at the Civic Center where residents can file reports, which an officer would relay to the new station.
Norton is also excited about the new station’s access to park space, which could lend itself to police-sponsored community events.
“We are very sensitive to community outreach,” Norton said. “We look forward to having a community space that can be shared.”
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