Aurora an approval away from new police facilities

Construction of Aurora's new police headquarters should start within the next few weeks.

Aldermen on Tuesday reviewed three contracts totaling $4.76 million to build a staff parking garage and a training and support building.

They're expected to approve that part of the project at next week's city council meeting.

Besides the 200,000-square-foot garage and 40,000-square-foot training and support building, the police complex will feature a centralized, 158,000-square-foot main facility.

The whole project is estimated to cost $75 million to build, city leaders said Tuesday.

The department's new home, at 1200 E. Indian Trail Road, will be a far cry from its current one.

Officers have outgrown their 42,000-square-foot digs, built in the 1960s at 350 N. River St. The station has had its share of maintenance problems and is basically unfixable, city leaders say.

The building eventually will be demolished, with the site to become part of Aurora's new River Edge Park.

Site work on Indian Trail is just about done, project manager Barbara Kattermann said.

Workers will construct the staff garage and support building first, with R.C. Wegman Construction Company to oversee three subcontractors.

They are: J.W. Peters Construction of Wisconsin, to do pre-cast concrete for $3.2 million; M. M. Peters Construction of Aurora, to do cast in place concrete for $1.3 million; and Fox Excavating of Batavia, to do building excavation for $202,235.

The support building with a firing range and evidence lab could open late next year.

The main headquarters won't be done until late 2009 or 2010. Aldermen should approve that contract in the next few months.

"(That) is a 24/7, 30- to -50-year building," Kattermann said.