Glen Ellyn working out plan for new, larger police station
After more than 40 years in downtown Glen Ellyn, the police department is firming up plans to move out of an old, cramped former junior high and into a new station that would be built near Panfish Park.
The village board will decide whether to borrow millions to finance construction of what's expected to be a 35,000-square-foot police headquarters off Park Boulevard. At their July 13 meeting, trustees will vote on a plan to issue up to roughly $14.1 million in bonds, $12 million of which would be set aside for the station. About $1.5 million would go toward making improvements to alleviate flooding and related property acquisition at Lake Ellyn.
The village would pay back the loan out of its capital project fund, at an estimated cost of $1 million annually for 20 years, Finance Director Christina Coyle said. The principal and interest payments would not require property tax increases.
Coyle anticipates about a $192,800 shortfall in the fund by 2019, but the village would likely shift around projects to end in the black.
"We need to continue to be mindful of our spending each year as we prepare the budget to make sure we are spending within our available resources," Coyle told trustees this week.
Police and village leaders, meanwhile, are reviewing seven teams of architects and general contractors that responded to a request for qualifications. Police Chief Phil Norton said he was "very pleased" with some of the teams, less so with others. If the village hires a selection committee's pick, architects would begin the design as early as September. And should the board move forward, construction could begin late this year or early 2016, Village Manager Mark Franz said in an email.
The project would end years of planning, with "serious talks" to address the space and security constraints at the current station - squeezed into what is now the Civic Center on Duane Street - going back to 2008, police said. When the economy tanked, the village held off on studying the idea for three years.
After rejecting several alternatives - one would have added on to the Civic Center - the board finally settled on the Panfish site, where the village already owned one home. The village spent about $370,000 to buy two others and the three houses have since been torn down.
It also makes sense to relocate police there because of nearby Roosevelt Road, an area with lots of business, traffic and a higher volume of 911 calls than elsewhere in town, police said.
Today, tour the existing station, and cardboard boxes and file cabinets are stacked up in hallways and interview rooms are inappropriately located next to offices. Prisoners are brought in through a parking lot shared with village employees and an armory is tucked away in a former janitor's closet.
The department of 40 sworn officers also deals with a "cumbersome" process of storing evidence and records police must keep for years after a crime, Assistant Chief Bill Holmer said Thursday.
"It's just not a good workflow," Holmer said.
The village bought the former junior high school in the 1970s. Police use about 11,000 square feet on the first floor, though consultants recommended the department - for its size and a village of some 28,000 - should take up more than 40,000 square feet.
"We outgrew this facility fairly quickly because it was never meant to be a police station," Holmer said.
One sticking point for a new police station could be whether to include a shooting range.
"Since they're in the boundaries of our community, I'd like to see us take advantage of that," Trustee Timothy Elliott said of a shooting range expected to open at the College of DuPage later this summer.
But police said they would likely be placed on a waiting list - federal and state agencies will use the range, too - and pay an annual membership fee. Norton said that could range from $18,000 to $20,000 a year.
"If you have your own range, you have lots of options," Norton said. "When you're at the whims of someone else, your options are very limited."
COD also would charge departments rates based on whether recruits train at its Homeland Security Training Institute.
Glen Ellyn sends candidates to the University of Illinois Police Training Institute in Urbana-Champaign.
"We're not looking to build that facility," Holmer said. "We're looking to build something that fits in with the character of the building and to be used by a 40-man police department."