A New Home for the Boys in Blue
A New Building, A New Location
The City of Kent police department has been operating out of a building built in the 1920s. Since being built the building has been repurposed many times until becoming the current police station.
With this in mind the City of Kent has decided it would be best to build a new building to house the police department.
When asked why the police department needs a new building Lieutenant Michael Lewis of the Kent city police said “We have outgrown our current building. Our current facilities are not up to date.”
[pullquote]“We have outgrown our current building. Our current facilities are not up to date.”– Lt. Michael Lewis[/pullquote]
The current building is 28,000 square feet, has an outdated jail that is to small, and does not meet the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) building codes.
The new building will located on the corner of state route 59 and Depeyster Street. The building will be 3-stories, 32,000 square feet, and have covered parking for the police cruisers. A larger and safer jail, larger evidence storage, and an improved dispatch center. The new building will also have public spaces like a lobby, public restrooms and meeting rooms for public meetings and events.
This is a digital image of what the police station is projected to look like.
What will it cost to build?
A building like this doesn’t come cheap though. With all the different costs from buying properties and tearing down old buildings to constructing new ones the total cost for this project will come out to around $18,000,000
This chart breaks down what percent of the 18,000,000 dollar budget is getting spent on what.
The bulk of the cost will be for the building construction which will take 71% of the funds, around $11,860,000
The second largest portion of the cost is coming from actually buying the properties where the new police station is going to be going. which comes to about 2,800,000, 15% of the cost.
Here is a map showing all the properties that have been bought and when they are dated to be torn down.
Future plans for Downtown Kent
The new Police department being built is just one of the many improvements the city has planned for the next few years.
The Dan Smith Park is going to be between Bar 145 and Bricco and will have a playground for kids, a game area and a seating area. Construction on this park will be starting soon.
The West River revitalization plan is another project in the works to help improve the city. The revitalization will add more housing complexes and bring in another restaurant to the community while re-facing the western bank of the cuyahoga river across from downtown.
