WALLINGFORD - The Town Council got an in-depth report Tuesday from the independent architecture firm it hired to assess police station options.

The town hired Jacunski Humes Architects of Berlin, which specializes in public safety designs, in June 2008 to study the possibilities: expand the 28,117-square-foot station at 135 N. Main St or build a new structure on the adjacent Wooding-Caplan property, which the town bought in 1992 for $1.5 million. The town paid $67,000 for the study.

Brian Humes, a partner in the firm, presented the final report to the council. He estimates that to accommodate the Police Department's needs through 2030, a station would have to be approximately 47,000 square feet and have room for 150 parking spaces, which Humes said would be very difficult to squeeze onto the station's current site.

The station - a former state armory the department moved into in 1986 -sits on less than an acre of land, and some of that acreage, which the department uses as an impound lot, comes from the Wooding-Caplan parcel.

Humes advised against attempting to expand the station. He said its age and limited land area would essentially require its demolition, and the only way to get the needed 47,000 square feet on that site would be to build upward.

"The only way for that to happen is a complete removal of that building and construction of a new structure," Humes told the council. "To accommodate it on that site you would end up with a very vertical solution … which is not in keeping with the character of your downtown."

The report estimates that a new station on the Wooding-Caplan parcel would cost the town $20.25 million, if construction were to begin next spring, to $23.69 million, if it were to begin in 2014, taking into account inflation of material and construction costs.

Republican Jerry Farrell Jr. called the estimated price "essentially a non-starter in this economy" and wondered whether it would be cheaper to instead build a number of satellite stations.

"It's just not an open checkbook," Farrell said.

Police Chief Douglas Dortenzio said satellite stations would only add another layer of bureaucracy to the department's operations, that the current station is at its capacity and has "no growth room." He said the issue of an adequate facility for the Police Department versus the town's ability to pay for it is a question of priorities.

"I'm not blind to the economy. Obviously, this discussion began a number of years ago, before the economy found itself in the position that it's in," Dortenzio said. "There's only so many dollars and it's a question of demands, it's a question of where you assess the needs of a professional police service … and if it's not a priority to you, then you shouldn't fund it."

Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. reminded the council that the purpose of Humes' report was not to advocate for the construction of a new police station, or for locating it on the Wooding-Caplan property, but to determine whether a new station could even be built on the site.

"Some will feel we need a new police station, some will feel we don't," Dickinson said. "This report is saying, 'Yes, it can be done on this site, and this is what it will be like."

Dickinson said discussion of when and where a new station would be built, and at what cost to the community, remained for a later date.

In other business, the council unanimously approved $3,058,771 in grant money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to be applied to the school system's operating budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The stimulus grants are intended to plug a 14-percent hole in the Education Cost Sharing grant from the state.

This year about $3 million of the state's $21,440,233 ECS grant to the town was financed through the stimulus law, but Dickinson cautioned that when those funds are exhausted in two years, when the stimulus package is expected to have run its course, it could leave a costly hole in the town's education budget.

"There certainly could be a huge gap," Dickinson said. "Then the question is how could that be made up, and it will be very difficult to the local taxpayers to make up that difference."

Democrat Vincenzo DiNatale did not attend Tuesday's meeting.

dmoran@record-journal.com

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