Study: Arlington Hts. police HQ should be replaced

The Arlington Heights Police Department headquarters is grossly inadequate for modern law enforcement and should be replaced, according to a preliminary report from architects hired to study the building.

However, finding the money for a new building would be difficult, Village President Arlene Mulder said when the architects gave their report to the village board Monday.

Village Manager Bill Dixon said he hoped grant money could be found some day for the project, but Jim McClaren, one of the architects who Dixon called a national expert on police stations, said he has never seen such a grant.

No estimate of costs has been worked up yet.

The 31-year-old building is about half the size it should be, said the architects, and it needs many repairs.

While Chief Gerald Mourning mentioned problems like windows leaking rain on computers in the investigations department, perhaps the most intractable issue is the lack of space.

There are no private rooms on the first floor to interview citizens who come in - often in crisis and sometimes with people on both sides of an issue. The records room is a major area that requires public access, but it is not on the first floor.

More rooms are needed for investigators to interview witnesses and suspects, and the existing ones are too small and poorly equipped, Mourning said.

The forensics team that works on evidence is in a converted closet, he said.

The sally port - where cars bring prisoners into the station - is not safe for officers or prisoners and some of it was turned into storage, said the chief.

The ceilings are at least a foot under minimum height - too low to properly install new technology, said McClaren, whose firm has an office in Wheaton - so wires tend to be run every which way.

The cell area has blind corners and the wrong kinds of cells that present suicide risks, said McClaren. Smoke detectors were installed there about 18 months ago, said Mourning. The cell area should have its own ventilation, especially since the population is subject to tuberculosis and hepatitis, said the architects.

Within two or three years necessary repairs to the present building will cost $350,000 - $251,000 of that for a new roof.

Some systems are so obsolete that parts are no longer available, said Mary Ann O'Hara of FGM Architects, Inc., of Oak Brook. The building is not up to standards for withstanding natural disasters, has deficient security, surveillance and electrical systems and is not up to current codes, the report said.

Several systems could fail at any time, fire sprinklers are minimal, and the building is not handicap accessible.

The study was commissioned in August 2007, when the village's financial condition was much stronger, said Dixon. The study is capped at $143,787. including expenses.

"The board and to some extent the community had been advised about this issue," he said. "Originally it was thought the police station would be addressed as part of the village hall construction.

"Probably 8 to 10 years ago it was decided the projects should be separated and the village hall should go first because the old one was very, very problematic."

Dixon said until cost estimates are available it is difficult to say when the village might have the funds for a new police station. He expects figures from the consultants in the first quarter of 2010.

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