Cape Council mulls other uses for PD station

School, municipal uses were discussed for 'underutilized' parts of the police building.

Reviewing police department blueprints at a Jan.
10 council workshop, in hopes of funding a use
for unused space in the building, are, from left, Town
Manager Michael McGovern, Council Chairman
James Walsh and Councilor Jessica Sullivan.

CAPE ELIZABETH — A dozen years after Cape Elizabeth spent more than a million dollars on a new police station, town councilors are considering what to do with parts of the building that now go unused.

What was intended to be a building big enough to grow into became a bit too big beginning in mid-2009. That’s when Cape merged 911 services with South Portland and Portland. Soon after, it joined those two cites and five other municipalities to create a regional crime lab.

McGovern said last week that “about 20 percent” of the 9,319-square-foot station, including a 16-by-24-foot room designed for emergency dispatchers, is now, for all intents, wasted space.

“We have the receptionist in this huge area that we set up for potentially a couple of dispatchers,” he said. “The people who now use that space don’t need all that space.”

In a Jan. 10 workshop session, councilors agreed that excess space in the police station has affected efforts to revitalize other town buildings.

“The library probably was impacted by the fact that there’s an underutilized police station,” said Councilor Frank Governali.

In November, voters rejected a $6 million bond to overhaul the Thomas Memorial Library.

“The problem is that people, don’t want to spend money,” said McGovern. “Surveys have shown that. Votes have shown that.

“I think the police station was one of the best long-term investments this community has made,” said McGovern. “That building will be there for 50 years. But there is a definite perception that we overbuilt, that we’ve got lots of extra space and it hurts us with other priorities that we want to do.

“This isn’t the biggest thing, but it’s an issue that we just can’t seem to shake off,” he said. “There are more urban myths about that police station. The reality is not to the degree that people think, but all the same time, it is a big building.”

However, while most councilors acknowledged the police station was far from the most popular project in town, not all felt unused space is what fuels the furor.

“You get people at various meetings that are still upset that it was built in the first place,” agreed Councilor David Sherman. “But I’ve never received a single complaint about excess space at the police station.

“I hope I’m not going to sound rude, but this issue really doesn’t get me that excited,” said Sherman. “I just don’t see this as a huge priority. I think we have bigger fish to fry than trying to figure out how to use 1,000 square feet of the police station.”

Other councilors chimed in to suggest extra space in the police station would make a good home for Internet technology services now housed in the basement of town hall, or for the historical society.

Although most councilors pushed the library as the best home for the historical society, the consensus seemed to be that its future space there, cut once to lower construction costs, may be jettisoned completely if and when any library rebuild goes back to the drawing board.

“To reduce the library costs, you’ve got to reduce the square footage,” said McGovern.

However, Chairman James Walsh lobbed a trial balloon that could conceivably cure both the town’s library woes and its PD problem.

“Why can’t we put our library in this space?” he asked, pointing to a blueprint of the station. “I mean, it is just screaming for something that will utilize the entire facility.”

When Police Chief Neil Williams asked where that would leave the police department, Walsh suggested it could relocate to the basement level of the community center.

“We’re going backwards if we do that,” said Williams. “We’ve already been there.”

Limited parking – just 10 spaces – makes the police station less than ideal for repurposing as the town library, said Williams. More importantly, he said, the old community center site was too prone to random walk-ins, leaving residents without the privacy they might expect when talking to a police officer.

McGovern said the same issue would arise if the current station is split among multiple users. It could cost as much as $100,000 to wall off that part of the building the police department would still use from the portion to be let out, he said.

Some councilors wondered if the town could derive an unconventional revenue stream from renting out a portion of its police station. However, McGovern said privacy issues mean some school or municipal use is the “best complement,” not renting the space for clubs and activities.

“But I can see this as a place people come in and pay their taxes at,” he said. “After all, it’s not all that easy for some people to get in and out of town hall, with all the stairs and ramps and such.”

That suggestion did not seem to gain much traction, Instead, it was IT services that seemed to rise to the top of the list.

“That would be the prefect use of that space,” said Councilor Jessica Sullivan. “That dispatch area is loaded with wiring, which is fabulous. It would mean the least amount of renovation.”

McGovern said the topic has been broached with the school department, but its technicians actually seem to prefer living in the town hall basement.

“We’ve tried to engage them over and over and over, but we have not been able to engage them,” he said. “We can’t force them to move.”

“Well, that would be really good repurposing in my opinion,” said Governali, suggesting that any move be timed to future server upgrades for the schools.

“Let’s take a long-term perspective on this and not have a knee-jerk reaction,” he said.

In November 2000, the council voted to borrow $3.24 million to renovate the former highway garage for use as a fire station, and to tear down and replace the police station. Bonds were issues in February 2001. Williams said his side of the public safety ledger accounted for “a little over $1 million” of that project.

In June 2011, the councilors voted to refinance the $1.6 million outstanding on those bonds, along with money borrowed in 2001 for community center work and land acquisition, totaling $1.91 million. The deal dropped the interest rate from the 4.79 percent paid on the original bonds to 2.04 percent. That allowed the town to borrow $200,000 to help finance the purchase of Robinson Woods II by the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust.

The new borrowing pushed debt payments up $20,000 – to $225,000 per year, eventually dropping to $200,000 annually – until the bonds are paid off in 2021, as originally scheduled under the 2001 offering.

A facilities study prepared last fall by Harriman Associates reported that the front and side doors of the police station should be replaced within the next two years, at a cost of $10,000. It also found $33,500 in routine, non-critical maintenance jobs, although the firm predicted 15 years of maintenance-free life in the exterior brickwork and up to 20 years for the shingled roof.