Streamwood police show off new digs

Streamwood has a bigger and, its officials feel, a better police headquarters.

The brand new 56,000-square-foot, two-story brick-and-masonry structure at 401 E. Irving Park Road was unveiled Sunday, following the village's Veterans Day ceremony.

The $15 million building replaces a structure built in 1967 that originally housed both the police department and village administration.

"Our new building is immense in its physical presence, when it's compared to the old," said police Chief Alan Popp. "We have more than doubled our size in square footage, yet we have designed each and every work space and each functional unit down to its smallest detail."

Village President Billie Roth said the new station was due, since the village's population has more than doubled since the old station was built.

"It was designed to meet the needs of changing times, in which we must hold evidence longer," Roth said.

Advantages to the new building include: moving the gang suppression unit into the same room with the general assignment detectives, which officials say will help with sharing information; alarms that sound when an officer in the building is down and is unable to communicate; a new training room that can host community events and serve as a heating, cooling or emergency center.

Village Manager Gary O'Rourke said another benefit is the close proximity of the lockup and special operations areas.

"In the old building, the detectives were on one side, the lockup was on the other," he said. "It wasn't very secure."

The process of looking into the village's space needs began in 2002, and the new station is part of an overall revamping of the village's campus that included a new seating area for the Veterans Memorial.

Sunday's unveiling included music from Streamwood High School students and tours that had children giggling as they explored the new jail cells.