Plans for a new $34 million police station in Wilmette are on the drawing board and a site for the new state of the art facility will likely be announced next year, officials said.
“That’s a project that been on our radar and we’ve been planning for it since 2008,” said Village Manager Mike Braiman. “The plan was to replace it around that time then the Great Recession took place and we weren’t able to move forward with that project.”
He said the village has now identified 2026 and 2027 as target years for construction because the village will have debt service that’s “rolling off so when we issue debt for the new station we can do it in a way that will limit the amount of money we need to increase in our tax levy.”
The village is currently working with an architectural firm on a space needs analysis to help determine how large the new station should be and what it should include, said Police Chief Kyle Murphy. Once that analysis is complete, the study will be given to the Village Board. The board will decide if the village should put out a request for proposal (RFP) and move into the actual design phase on the project. Part of that will also be dependent on identifying a site for the new station, which will likely happen next year.
The existing one story brick station in the 700 block of Ridge Road was built in 1968 and is well beyond its 30 year life span, Murphy said. He also said there’s not nearly enough office space or parking for the 45 sworn officers and support staff in the existing station, among other things.
“You can imagine how much law enforcement has changed over 55 years,” he explained. “From having women in law enforcement now and having adequate locker room space for a different population that’s now policing to efficiencies that need to be realized in a new building.”
Those coming to the station to meet with the department social worker also have to walk through the police facility to get to the office, which Murphy hopes to eliminate in the new design to give the public added privacy.
“A lot of visitors who come to our police station don’t recognize it as a police station and they don’t know how to get into the building because it’s facing in a direction away from the street,” said Murphy. “That’s another challenge we have for the public.”
He also said the $34 million price tag for the new station could go up due to inflation and the jump in the last few years in the price of construction materials.
“I think there’s a lot of realized benefits that the community’s going to have with a new facility,” he added. “We want a station that this community’s going to be proud of. One that’s worthy of this community and the residents.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.
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