Cop shop in the works
The design for a new Niagara Regional Police station for St. Catharines is still being finalized, but those involved are optimistic they’ll have it done by November.
The new 1 District station was initially supposed to be built simultaneously with the new headquarters in Niagara Falls, which opened last fall.
But the former brownfield site on Welland Avenue near Geneva Street has been sitting empty for so long, city councillors say they’ve been getting complaints.
“I’ve had a lot of residents say they paid a lot of money to clean up the site, but it’s just sitting there in a big hole,” Grantham Coun. Bill Phillips said earlier this month in a council meeting. He asked staff to report back with an update and repeated the request this past Monday.
Even St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said he’s had calls to the mayor’s office by citizens asking what’s going on and why the delay.
“That hole in the ground has been there long enough and we want to see some activity on the property,” he said. In November 2016, the police board learned the new station was tracking at about $23 million, while the budget allotment was $18.2 million.
The board then sent the NRP and regional officials back to the drawing board.
“We’re as anxious as the City of St. Catharines is in getting a new 1 District facility,” said NRP Chief Bryan MacCulloch.
“Our existing 1 District facility is tired. It has served us well over the years but we’re looking forward to getting into a new modern facility that will serve the community of St. Catharines and Thorold for the next 40 to 50 years.”
The NRP’s current station at 68 Church St. was built in the 1960s with an addition put on in the 1980s. It’s reportedly had a number of problems including a leaky roof, inadequate temperature controls and even a rat infestation.
The new building will house approximately 140 sworn and civilian employees.
MacCulloch said police are optimistic they’ll find a solution.
“We’re working closely with the architect and our partners at the region,” he said. “We’re optimistic that we can come up with a design that meets our operational needs while being fully cognizant of the financial budget that is remaining for that project.”
Police Services Board member Ken Gansel, chairman of the accommodation steering committee overseeing construction of the station, said the committee looked at three different physical layouts in order to try and get the space to match the dollars allotted for the building.
He said they’re working on getting the $23 figure down by doing a little slice and dicing, such as reducing corridors by a foot and possibly removing a community room. There has also been some discussion about finding an alternative space for the communications backup centre other than in the Welland Avenue station but that hasn’t panned out yet and it remains in the current design.
“We are very close to finally getting this thing adjudicated,” Gansel said, adding he anticipates a report will go to the police board in November.
The committee has been facing serious financial challenges from the beginning.
A budget of just over $83 million was put aside in 2009 for the headquarters and the 1 District station — with no specific allocation for the St. Catharines station.
Headquarters cost around $65 million which left about $18 million for the St. Catharines station. Of that, Gansel said $2.3 million was used for cleaning up the brownfield site.
Gansel said when the original money was given in 2009, there was never any escalating clause for building costs rising over the years. He estimates there should have been an additional $11-$13 million added to the budget since then for inflation and escalation.
He said the situation now is they’re dealing with some politicians who have a “redesign or resign” attitude.
“The board’s responsibility is to the almost 500,000 people who live here and the three or four million visitors we get every year to provide an adequate policing model,” Gansel said.
“And you can’t do that unless you have a building that’s x number of square feet and a building that supports emergency communications and other things that we would need.”