Design work to proceed on EL safety complex

Hurricane upgrades, holding cells, more could push cost beyond the $1.7 million left

East Lyme — Town officials on Tuesday gave the architects designing the renovation of the former Honeywell office building into a new public safety facility the go-ahead to keep moving forward on a design approved by the Public Safety Building Vision Committee.

Architects Silver/Petrucelli + Associates will now prepare detailed construction plans the town will use to seek bids from contractors. Those plans are expected to be completed in early January.

The plans call for consolidating the town’s police operations, dispatch center, fire marshal’s office and emergency operations center — which are currently located in different locations throughout town — on the first floor of the building at 277 W. Main St., with an information technology room to be located on the second floor. The rest of the second floor will remain unoccupied and could be used in the future to accommodate other departments.

The vision committee Tuesday night also decided to locate a public restroom within the entrance area of the building, tacking on an estimated $30,000 to $40,000 to the cost of the $1.7 million project.

The $1.7 million figure does not include an estimated $119,088 needed to install an elevator or the estimated $733,524 to build a sally port and holding cells.

The committee is moving forward on designing the sally port and holding cell area. Committee Chairman Paul Dagle has said the hope is to obtain bids on the cells and sally port and then seek additional funding that residents would have to approve. Police currently lease Waterford’s holding cells to process arrests.

SEE ARCHITECTS PAGE C2