N. Aurora closer to new police facility

North Aurora officials said at a village board meeting Monday they have narrowed the number of architectural firms they are considering to build their new police facility, and will take a tour of police stations around the Chicago area this weekend in order to see what those firms have done.

Sente Rubel Bosman Lee Architects of Deerfield, Larson & Darby architects of Geneva, FGM architects of Oak Brook and Wold Architects & Engineers of Palatine compose the short list to design the estimated 30,000 square-foot building.

The firms were selected by the Police Facilities Committee from an initial list of 14. Trustee and Police Facilities Committee member Mark Gaffino said the four finalists were selected in large part on their experience building other police stations. He hopes to have an architect chosen within a couple months he said.

The tour this weekend will include police stations in Montgomery, Hickory Hills and Orland Park.

Gaffino said the tour will help the committee choose by allowing village officials to have a first-hand experience of the firms' products and talk to the people who work there.

"It's one way of checking out who's on the short list. The tour will give us a chance to see what they did and if they impress us with their work," Gaffino said.

After the tours, the next step will be to place a price by each firm by opening the sealed fee proposals each firm submits to the village.

Gaffino said the project has moved ahead of schedule by a couple of weeks and he would like to see it stay that way.

Located on about 5 acres at the northwest corner of Route 31 and Airport Road, the village looks to break ground on the $10 million to $12 million station in April 2009, with completion coming in the summer of 2010, Gaffino said.

He added that the village will try to make the facility as low-impact on the environment as possible without inflating the cost.

"Every step we're going to look at how to make it green," Gaffino said.

Village President John Hansen said he was happy with the progress the facilities committee has made. He said he especially liked that the committee was keeping its eyes on making the new station as environmentally friendly as possible, saying water has been a problem in the past for the village.

"We're all in the same bind. We all have to be energy-minded," Hansen said.

Officials have said they have narrowed the field down to four construction management firms from 14.