THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2007
Add AT&T Property Into Cop Shop Mix
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Reporter
Park Ridge officials finally got some specific, hard information on what a new police station will cost, and where it could be located.
Some of the information they got was surprising, and could take the long-planned and much-discussed project off in a direction not originally anticipated.
The city's architectural consultant - Sente-Rubel-Bossman-Lee Architects - laid out some very preliminary cost estimates, described various location options within the city, and made some unexpected suggestions at a meeting of aldermen and staffers in January. About 40 members of the police department also attended.
The consultant strongly rejected two of the three original location possibilities, the present public works service center and the former public works site at Elm Street and Greenwood - as unworkable. He said the present city hall/Courtland homesite location could work, but would be difficult.
He suggested three other possibilities:
* Cumberland/Touhy/Third Street (too small).
* Garden Street and Prairie Avenue (small, and would not meet Uptown planning guidelines)
* The AT&T property at Prairie Avenue and Park Place, now used for the Farmer's Market (site is a good fit, could help spur Uptown redevelopment, he said, but would require property acquisition).
As a result, officials now have elevated two possible locations to favored status.
* One is the existing city hall site and the newly purchased homesite on Courtland next to city hall parking lot. The city recently purchased the home next to the parking lot.
* The other is the AT&T site at the southwest corner of Uptown.
"The AT&T property (so-called because AT&T owns most of the land the city would need for the project) could work because it would have enough space for a building your police department needs, based on its number of personnel, and the site also could spur more Uptown redevelopment," said the consultant. "One argument against it would be that the city must acquire new property and therefore would have to spend extra money."
The city hall/Courtland site contains the necessary space and would not require any additional property acquisition," the consultant said. "But it would require demolition of the existing police department facilities in the basement of city hall and the city council chambers, and would be extremely disruptive for all city departments during a two-year construction period."
He said, according to national police station construction standards generally accepted by architects and police officials, Park Ridge needs 37,450 square feet of space (it now has 9,000 in city hall's basement), and 12,100 square feet of parking space for vehicles. These numbers are based primarily on the department's current personnel roster of about 62 sworn officers.
Potential construction costs will probably range from a low of $9.3 million to a high of $10.4 million for a building that large, he said, not including contingencies and land acquisition. The cost for a 100-space parking deck would range from $2.6 million to $3 million, he said.
He was asked to provide additional details on costs and options at the Courtland and AT&T sites in time for the next meeting of the city council's public safety committee, scheduled for Mar. 1.