Troy hits brakes on police department addition or expansion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Charles Bolinger

Editor

Despite wishing for more space, Troy Police Chief Chris Wasser and his department will have to wait until at least next spring, when the city’s new fiscal year begins.

After a visit from Josh Mandell with FGM Artchitects on July 21, where he quickly went through a digital presentation that called for adding on to the current department, which is part of Troy City Hall. He said he would return in mid-August to see what the city wanted to do.

In the meantime, a reporter emailed Wasser on July 25 for a copy of Mandell’s presentation, hoping for a story for the July 31 issue. Originally telling readers it would appear on Aug. 7, the story did not because Wasser asked the reporter if he could wait until mid-August to write about it, saying he had to poll the council first.

On Aug. 6, the reporter asked Wasser if he had a sense yet of which plan a majority of the council supported for a planned story in the Aug. 14 issue. Wasser replied that he hadn’t heard anything yet. On Aug. 8, the reporter replied he would move the idea to the Aug. 21 issue. 

On Aug. 11, Wasser responded, “It doesn’t sound like there is going to be any movement in the near future of a police department expansion.”

On Aug. 12, Wasser and City Administrator Jay Keeven both replied to a reporter’s questions after learning that project had been shelved.

“I believe the consensus is a concern for the cost,” Keeven said. Wasser agreed. 

Last month, Wasser reminded the mayor and council that this entire process began in 2023 and the feasibility study funds from that period have been exhausted. 

“The next step we need to take is coming up with drawings,” Wasser said in July. “We need to get into a contract for that.”

Councilman Sam Italiano noted last month that the city’s next fiscal year won’t start until May 1 and this project was not a part of the current budget. He said during a public safety committee meeting that these plans would need to go through the finance committee and the mayor before moving ahead with any drawings.

In July, Mandell promised a presentation no longer than 20 minutes. He opened the presentation by showing two different building addition scenarios, which would expand the department north toward East Clay Street.

“Some of the challenges in this building are level changes and we think we may b

e able to tie into this with an addition,” he said.

Bounded by Clay Street on the north and Kimberlin on the west with a solar array and a parking lot on the east side, the first option would have comprised an addition of 6,500-square-feet. Five thousand-square-feet of that would have been air-conditioned, except for the sally port, which would have been vented only and would have made up the remainder of the additional space.

Mandell said under this plan, the building and zoning (B&Z) department, at 101 East Clay, would remain intact but an attached garage would be razed. Most of the area between the existing city hall/police station and the back side of B&Z plus 10 or 15 more feet, he added.

Once the new addition was finished, attention would have turned to renovating the almost 4,000-square-feet of current police station space for a total of 10,500-square-feet, Mandell said. 

In the second scenario, 6,500-square-foot, air-conditioned addition with a 1,500-square-foot sally port that was again ventilated but not air-conditioned, for a total of 8,000-square-feet, or 12,000-square-foot total when including the existing department space.

That plan would have meant demolishing 101 E. Clay St. plus the garage and moving B&Z into city hall but that option would have allowed for more space and would have given the police department its own entrance from Clay.

Mandell estimated the preliminary costs as conservatively high for the two options. The 6,500-square-foot addition would have carried a $5 million price tag and would have cost $6.25 million when fully built out. He said prices for both options assume no major changes in the construction industry or the general economy between now and 2027. This could mean the real costs could be the same or lower, he added.

The second option with the 8,000-square-foot addition would have cost $6 million and $7.25 million fully built out, Mandell said. He mentioned an expansion would be preferable to growing upward, as in adding a second floor but the costs of reinforcing the current foundation and adding support pillars for the weight and mass of another floor and a new roof would likely be cost-prohibitive.

Both options assume no changes to the city hall parking lot. Wasser asked if he could get the professional services cost from FGM for the drawings and Italiano agreed, if the mayor and council approved it. 

Mandell also touched on a 2024 plan, which would have moved the entire department out of city hall to its own property along Sr. Airman Brad Smith Boulevard. There, the station would have had a footprint of 16,500-square-feet. Officials said it would have had an estimated cost of around $12 million to buy the land and build on it.

Mandell pointed out that the 6,500-square-foot plan is quite a reduction from last year’s plan.

The timeline would have had bid documents ready in February 2026 and contract let in April followed by long-lead items and construction would have started next summer and would have been done in two phases – construct the addition first then renovate the current department. A year to complete construction would have meant a ribbon-cutting in the fall of 2027. 

“Our department has grown since this building was built [during the 1990s],” Wasser said in June. “When it was built, we had 12 officers and now we’re at 24. We have outgrown this space. We’ve adapted as best as we could but there’s only so much we could do before running out of space.”

 

Caption – one of the biggest reasons the Troy Police need more space in their department; things are together that would never be near each other in a larger space.