Architects plan, design space for city’s expanded police HQ
It will be a few years before the Regina Police Service moves lock, stock and barrel into the former Saskatchewan Transportation Company building.
At the end of March, the Strategic Prairie Region Alliance (SPRA) was hired for the project to handle architecture services following a Request for Proposals process. The group is a joint venture between P3Architecture in Regina, aodbt architecture and interior design in Saskatoon with support from CS&P Architects of Toronto.
Last week the architect team, responsible for the planning and design work, sized up the former bus depot and interviewed police about their needs so a space plan can be developed for the various units.
“We want this to be a 20-yearplus solution for the RPS,” said Jamie Hanson, project lead and manager of facilities and engineering with the City of Regina.
The design work should take until the end of 2018. When the project moves into the construction stage, another tender will be put out and a different contractor will do the renovations and construction.
Hanson expects a construction tender will be put out early next summer.
The move from the existing police station on Osler Street — right across the street from the former bus depot — will be staged to minimize the impact on police operations.
“We’ll focus our efforts on repurposing the new facility and we would transition units into that space and then we can work on areas that have been vacated in the existing headquarters and complete our site development in subsequent phases,” Hanson said.
By 2021, the site development and the move of police to their new homes should be wrapped up.
The current police station will be used in conjunction with the new facility to create “a campus solution,” Hanson said.
“There will be two facilities but it has yet to be determined how they will be connected,” he noted.
By bringing all the various police units together, the RPS should see efficiency gains and lead to improved service delivery, Hanson said.
In late November, city council approved $37 million to buy and renovate the former STC building. Of that, $16.2 million went to the purchase of the properties.
The remaining funds are for the design, construction, furniture and any specialty equipment needed.
At the time, Mayor Michael Fougere celebrated the “wonderful” deal as a bargain for the city. He said the alternative was shelling out about $140 million to construct a new police headquarters.
Expanding the police service’s quarters has been the city’s “most pressing infrastructure issue,” Fougere said.
The current police headquarters are “significantly overcrowded,” according to administration, forcing police to move numerous personnel off site.
The 85,000-square-foot STC building comes equipped with backup power generators and a suitable communications system.
In the 2017 provincial budget, the government announced it was shutting down STC, which ceased operations May 31 last year. The Crown corporation had opened its then newly built $26.2-million terminal and head office building in downtown Regina in November 2008.
When the purchase of STC was announced, it was anticipated the building would be ready to accommodate an expanded police headquarters by 2019 or early 2020.
The RPS currently leases five properties. The leases on those properties expire between 2020 and 2023.
“We will be taking the timing of those leases into consideration to ensure we maximize the benefit of those leases and minimize any potential additional costs,” Hanson said. “We do feel that we will have adequate time to complete the project work in advance of any leases expiring.”
The project could include the demolition of the Emergency Services Building at 1755 Osler St. and the Municipal Justice Building at 1770 Halifax St.
The Justice Building was constructed in 1930 as the police headquarters.
In 1978, headquarters moved around the block to Osler Street. Even then, the building continued to be used for gym and training facilities, as a fleet services garage, radio shop, space for special units and the home of the police band.
In 2015 the City of Regina budgeted $660,000 to decommission the 1957 addition to the Justice Building and sell the 1930 original structure. That didn’t go ahead.
“Now that the RPS will be occupying approximately two blocks, the (Justice Building) is a more valuable piece of real estate for us to look at how it could be incorporated into our broader redevelopment,” Hanson said. “We believe the 1950s portion will be demolished. We need to work through what the opportunities are for the 1930s piece.”
The 1930 portion of the Justice Building is on the heritage holding bylaw list.
That means the owner — currently the City of Regina — must get municipal approval before undertaking any significant changes or demolition.