While some Elmhurst residents feel the city’s 35-year old police station ought to have years of useful life left, elected town officials and police command staff clearly think the aging and deteriorating structure should be replaced by a larger modern public safety facility.
Mayor Scott Levin recently acknowledged some concerns from residents but defended the process and the conclusion to replace the aging station.
“We started looking at this in 2018,” Levin said. “Every alderman and every aldermanic candidate has said they support the tear down and complete replacement of the building.
“Anyone who’s looked at it has concluded it would be penny-wise and pound-foolish to look at remodeling.”
Many residents who attended a Feb. 20 open house tour of the facility drew similar conclusions. During the event, which drew enough residents to make up two tour groups, Elmhurst police Chief Michael McLean and deputy Chiefs Brett Kaczorowski and Jim Gandy pointed out some of the old building’s major shortcomings, highlighted in a project update document on the department’s website.
According to the city update, the building has serious functional issues, including outdated systems, infrastructure problems and noncompliance with safety and accessibility standards.
City officials said those problems started with a building that was designed by someone with no experience in police stations. The poster picture for that flaw is a semispiral open staircase through the center of the building that takes up significant floor space and has stair treads which taper to an area too small for an officer’s boot.
The building’s air conditioning unit failed beyond repair in 2016, requiring the rental of portable chiller units at an annual cost of $60,000. Two large silver pipes visible running up the west side of the building carry cold water from the rented chillers parked next to the building in warm weather months.
Other structural failures visible from outside the building are the tops of the columns flanking the station’s front entrance. The tops of those columns have shifted quite noticeably from lower sections and are now wrapped in black mesh to prevent unsupported brickwork from falling.
While there are other structural problems related to plumbing and mechanical systems – a heating system beyond its expected service life, for one – many of the other building problems are related to growing space demands for officer and detainee safety, a growing number of officers, and increased demands for evidence storage and analysis.
According to city sources, many areas, such as evidence processing, property storage, equipment storage, officer training and juvenile holding, no longer meet the space or regulatory requirements of a department that serves a city of over 46,000 residents and responds to approximately 43,000 calls for service each year.
One area where the demands of modern policing have outstripped the facility is the firing range in the building’s lower level. The range was designed and built for pistol and shotgun practice, but Elmhurst officers now have AR-15 style rifles and the range can’t safely handle those more powerful weapons. Since officers must regularly demonstrate competence with those weapons, the department pays for officer time and facility charges to use an offsite range.
What’s proposed, and what’s the cost?
Since 2017, the city has worked with FGM Architects, a firm experienced in public safety buildings, on space needs analysis and possible solutions to the problems of the existing police station and estimated costs. The space needs analysis concluded that the station should be about 54,000 square feet in size, 22,000 square feet larger than the present space.
FGM’s work, which has has been updated several times, has included three options:
Simply repair the existing building – estimated cost $10 million;
Renovate and expand the present building to the recommended 54,000 square foot size – estimated cost $40 million; or
Tear down and replace the existing building (same location, larger footprint) – estimated cost $48 million.
City and police officials have concluded that a completely new facility is the best option. Levin and others have said that bearing walls within the present structure limit remodeling options and unknowns in the old building could bring renovation costs up to replacement cost.
Aldermen on the city’s Finance, Council Affairs and Administrative Services Committee looked at costs and possible revenue sources to pay for the replacement and late last year issued a report recommending a combination of funding to cover the costs of bond issues to pay for the project. The recommendation was to raise the city’s hotel/motel tax from 4% to 5%; time new bond issues to coincide with retiring city bonds; eventually to sell a city-owned office building at 180 W. Park Ave. and increase the property tax levy by about $53 a year for the owner of a house with a fair market value of $500,000. The committee estimated over the twenty-year life of the bond, an owner of that value house would pay about $1100 for the new station.
These numbers are recommendations only and won’t take effect until a City Council vote to approve.
If Elmhurst City Council members approve the plan to tear down and replace the existing police station, as seems likely, city officials have recommended an initial $3.5 million bond issue to pay for design and engineering the project.
“We’ve been told design and engineering would take about 12 months.” Chief McLean said. “Then about 20 months for construction.”
During that time, McLean said plans are to move police operations to the city-owned building at 180 W. Park.
“We’re fortunate the city bought 180 W. Park years ago,” McLean said. “It does have the space we need for every single function, except a firing range and lockup.”
McLean said his department would have to work with neighboring departments for those functions during construction of the new station.
City Council members aren’t expected to vote on the project until after they receive a recommendation from the council’s Public Affairs and Safety Committee. Seventh Ward Ald. Mike Brennan, who chairs the committee, said committee members expect to finalize a recommendation to council at their March 24 meeting.
A draft recommendation for the new station that is already posted by his committee is “not quite final,” Brennan said.
“I think we’re going to add a little bit more in there,” he said. “It’s pretty close to being done. We want to get it in front of the council before the council turns over (after upcoming city elections).”
Levin said on receipt of Brennan’s committee report, he’s ready to call it for a council vote. “We can’t keep waiting,” he said. “It’s not getting cheaper.”
Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
