Preferred site for Wilbraham police station identified

Date: 1/7/2015

WILBRAHAM – The Police Station Building Feasibility Subcommittee voted unanimously at its Jan. 5 meeting to designate 2780 Boston Road as its preferred site for the development of a potential new police station.

Subcommittee Chair Roger Fontaine said the next step would be to obtain an appraisal and assessed value for the property before the Board of Selectmen begin negotiations to purchase the land. Any deal would have to be approved at the 2015 Annual Town Meeting.

According to the request for proposals, the purchase of 2780 Boston Road, owned by Helen Moore, would cost up to $425,000. A residential home currently exists on the 1.8 acre site.

The proposed police station would be roughly 1,400 square feet and consist of two stories, Fontaine said.

“The property is offered by the Moore family without a building, so they have to deal with any disposal and structures,” he added. “There will be nothing on there. It’ll be a clean site when we buy it.”

A refined project design would be completed by Jan. 26 and a proposed estimate would likely be released by Feb. 10, Fontaine noted. By April, most of the details about the project would be finalized.

“We will communicate those facts as we get them so people understand [that] it’s not smoke and mirrors,” he added. “These are the real core facts; this is the location, this is the design, this is how many square feet, this is a proposed cost, and we’ll communicate that as we go along.” 

Fire Chief Francis Nothe said there is little to no state grant funding for new police or fire stations.

“That’s part of the problem with both police and fire facilities,” he added. “No one wants to even broach the subject because the need is too great and evaluation of ‘your district got it, my district didn’t,’ so once it enters the political arena, it just goes silent.”

Jeff McElravy, architect and senior project manager for Tecton Architects, said state grant funding for police and fire departments is moving toward 21st century policing initiatives.

“Moving forward, we’re not going to see anything for bricks and mortar for a while in my humble opinion,” he explained.

One of the biggest things to control the cost is to manage the square footage of the project, McElravy said.

“We make smart choices about area; that’s how we control budget,” he added.

Edward Rigney, a member of the subcommittee, said he's visited many police stations where square footage was arbitrarily cut during the building design process.

“Function follows form instead of form following function,” he added. “So, they’ve cut the opportunity for it to function correctly. I’m comfortable with delivering the building that will perform as we think it will reasonably do. I think we have an obligation to not have to revisit this as a community for a while.” 

Another important aspect is having more specific and detailed information in the project's design, McElravy said. The more information about a particular aspect of the project would reflect in estimates more befitting the reality of the project.
 
“The real danger people get into is they’ll see a schematic estimate and say, ‘Well, that number looks ridiculously large,’” he explained. “The problem is that for every number that might be ridiculously large, there might be one that’s ridiculously low because there’s just not enough information in there.” 

Fontaine also urged members of the subcommittee to consider expansion upwards in the future with relation to the pitch and height of the roof.

“Storage space in those locations becomes very cheap potentially for the long haul,” he added.

McElravy said the only sites the town owns on which a police station could be built would not be cost effective to create a police station up to code with current laws.

Police Chief Roger Tucker said the new police station would also include an emergency operation center, a training room, and a sally port. The existing site at 16 Main Street is 110-years old and previously served as the town hall.