Arlington Hts. police station update due in December
Results of a study about building a new police station in Arlington Heights are expected next month, said village officials, who want to know if a new station can be built on the current municipal campus, and how much money it will cost.
FGM Architects will present another update on the study to the village board at its Dec. 8 meeting and will present full results in February or March.
Since beginning the study in October, FGM has met with various sections of the Arlington Heights Police Department to go over needs for the future, said Ray Lee, principal with FGM.
The village agreed to spend no more than $70,355 on the architectural study that officials expect to give them an array of options for what to do next. The current police facility was built in the 1970s and officials say it is past its useful life.
Village officials are trying to determine if it would be best to tear down and rebuild a police station on the current site or find new land in the village to construct a new police station.
One of the goals of the study is to determine a budget, which officials have said needs to be lower than the $40 million placeholder that was publicized in 2010.
"I don't see any reason why we can't do this in a cost-effective manner," said Ray Lee, principal with FGM.
Creating a utilitarian building that can be used 24/7 and protecting the safety of officers are also important, officials said.
One possibility is for police to share space with village hall, but Trustee Tom Glasgow said he disagrees with that for security and growth reasons.
"Right now we are looking at everything," Mayor Tom Hayes said.
The looks of the building will also be important.
"We don't want it to be the redheaded stepchild," said Trustee Jim Tinaglia who owns his own architecture firm in town. "Without getting carried away with the finances, we want to choose the details so it looks like it belongs between village hall and the fire station already on the municipal campus."
Trustee Mike Sidor asked the firm to look into sustainable building ideas and grant funding to pay for more environmental ways to build the new station.
Other goals include providing workout facilities for the police department and building an on-site firing range.
Officials want covered parking for patrol cars due to the expensive equipment often in the cars and the delay that comes with having to clean off cars in the winter.
"I know we would all prefer in a perfect world to have a covered, heated, enclosed, parking garage for our police vehicles, but that might not happen," Hayes said. "Maybe it doesn't need to be enclosed, but it needs to be covered."
The new station will also need space to store long-term evidence because in cases of murder, sexual assault or other felonies the evidence needs to kept for decades after the fact, Glasgow said.
The study will also look at how much it will cost to temporarily relocate the police station during construction and how much it could cost if the village decides not to rebuild on the same site.
"We look forward to continued progress on this," Hayes said.