Saratoga Springs Police and public safety officials are renewing their calls to construct a new police headquarters.
City police last gave a presentation on the need for a new station a year ago. The proposed station would go in across the Maple Avenue where a parking lot currently sits.
Currently, the Saratoga Springs Police Department is located in the ground floor of town hall. Its current space was never meant to house the nearly 100-person department.
At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Assistant Chief Eric Warfield highlighted how cramped the space has become.
“This room is a perfect example of that. It’s officially called the training room. It’s also the roll call room, the report writing room, the break room, and then the training room. We actually do a lot of training in here because as you see there’s not much room to do that,” said Warfield.
Warfield also emphasized the out-of-date facility is impacting the ability to attract new officers, and could increase response times.
In 2003, proposed base construction costs for a new station were $4.7 million. In 2007 that figure rose to $9.7 million.
Chief Tyler McIntosh broke down the current projected costs for the station.
“It is a very suitable location. Centralized downtown, ease of access for the community, and will certainly support a modern, safe, and efficient police operations. Now we’re looking at a base budget of $15.2 million but when we add in the contingencies and allowances that’s when we’re in the $24-26 million range,” said McIntosh.
The station would feature a connective walkway so police will no longer walk prisoners along busy Lake Avenue and return around 9,000 square feet of space currently used by police to city hall.
Democratic Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi warned the project could impact the city’s bond rating.
“If we pay off the bonds then we can borrow more. But we are not paying off our bonds until 2033. And what we have available to borrow from 2025 to 2033 is $37 million only. Now, if we use $25 million or $26 million for this project, essentially it means that there is only $11 million more for the next seven, eight years,” said Sanghvi.
Democratic Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran raised some concerns that there are other priorities for the city to consider.
“I really have a hard time with the process because there’s been no engagement with everybody at this table. The things we should have been doing a while ago didn’t happen. And so, when someone who’s being asked to sign up for $1.8-2 million in debt service, lower bond rating, more expensive everything going forward when I can also name $40 million in infrastructure investments that need to be done right now, and I’m talking water pipes so people can have water in their homes, there’s a lot of priorities that have to be balanced,” said Moran.
Moran suggested there may be other locations in the city that could be better used as a new headquarters. First-term Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll, who won his seat with GOP backing, argued this is the most ideal spot.
“NYMER, our insurance company, said we don’t want prisoners on Lake Avenue, so we need to have a facility with a sally port that connects to our court. So, these other options—” said Coll.
“We need a sally port here?” asked Moran.
“Here. So we can walk to the court room. We cannot renovate this space because how are we goingto bring prisoners underneath the building? We’re going to put a sally port underneath the structure of the building?” said Coll.
“There’s other ways that we could—” said Moran.
“By the time we do that, it’s going to be more money to renovate this building to be a stand-alone facility and we’re still in the same issue where we’re sharing space with our city workers,” said Coll.
The city set aside $500,000 in the Capital Budget for the project's planning phases in 2025. Construction is proposed to begin in October 2026.
Coll tells WAMC a final proposal would be presented before the Capital Committee and voted into the Capital Budget in the fall, adding his department continues to look for adjustments to make the project less expensive.
