|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
NEW BEDFORD — Police work strains against the confines of headquarters at Rockdale Avenue.
No holding cells for people just arrested. No conference room right inside the front entrance for officers to meet with a crime victim or a witness. Evidence locker space is tight; conference rooms are too small. The electronic key fob system for the inner doors is 20 years old. The sally port on the side of the building is short of contemporary standards. The parking lot out front is a cratered asphalt mess.
But, then, what can one expect from a former Fernandes Super Market and Maxi Drug store renovated as a low-price move to get the agency through just a few years? That was 25 years ago.
“This building does not work,” Mayor Jon Mitchell said on Thursday morning, as he stood with department officials outside the one-story structure to announce that the city is taking the first step in a years-long project to build a new station. It would be the agency’s first newly built headquarters since the 19th century.
There are only guesses at the moment about the price, and no forecast about where the new building would stand. That’s all to be included in a formal study once the city hires a project manager, but Mitchell figures a three- to four-year venture costing tens of millions — to be financed with municipal bonds.
“It won’t be cheap,” Mitchell said, adding that the closest price comparison would be the combined police and fire station now being built in Brockton for about $100 million. He noted that Taunton is also building a new police headquarters.
“What we want is a modern facility,” he said, noting that a new headquarters was one of 89 recommendations included in a report delivered last year by a consultant the city hired to study the Police Department and tell the city how to improve operations. The department has fulfilled two-thirds of the recommendations, Mitchell said.
“New Bedford can do better. We’re committed to it,” Mitchell said.
Police Chief Paul Oliveira hopes so.
He was with the department when he and his fellow officers were hustled out of their headquarters in a 19th-century building on Spring Street downtown into new digs nearly two miles away that were meant to be “temporary.” That was early 1999.
“We felt we were being evicted,” Oliveira said, recalling it was all done quickly and on the cheap, after the city found a buyer for the downtown property that now is the site of the DeMello International Center.
When officers moved in, they could still see marks on the tile floors where shelves once stood in the supermarket, later a drug store. Thin interior walls went up in a hurry. Hallways soon stood where shoppers once strolled the aisles.
Of course, Oliveira, who was a narcotics detective at the time, already knew the new spot well.
His father was manager of Fernandes Super Markets, which had four stores in New Bedford. He remembers, as a boy, making rounds of all the stores with his father on Sundays when the stores were closed to make sure the refrigerators were working.
Now he’s got an office in what used to be the produce department, complemented with what he figures must be “the smallest conference room in Bristol County.”
The building has been renovated a few times since 1999, but occasional rumors of a new headquarters never panned out. Oliveira joked that police officers were probably starting the rumors.
“We’ve heard the stories: it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming,” Oliveira said. “There was never any traction.”
This time, though, there’s a formal announcement, Oliveira said.
“This is the first time we’ve seen a press conference. There’s a commitment to get this done,” Oliveira said. He estimated that the department could use about twice as much space as it now has on Rockdale Avenue.
Mitchell said his administration, which took office in 2012, is still catching up on infrastructure work. He said previous administrations did not have a long-range plan for big capital projects like this.
The consultant’s recommendation is to move with the prevailing trend in police agencies and consolidate operations in one place.
The department — now about 40 people shy of a full complement — has about 85 sworn and civilian employees working on Rockdale Avenue, another 85 at the South End substation on Brock Avenue and nearly 70 on Ashley Boulevard in the North End.
Patrols work out of the two substations. The headquarters is home for administration, communications, detectives, the narcotics division, and community outreach.
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org
Coggeshall Street, between Ashley Boulevard and Acushnet Avenue, centrally located with great highway access, and they own the property! Ever wonder who holds the lease on the current Police HQ?
Why is it going to cost $100 Million dollars??? Doesn’t that number seem a bit high or is it just me?
I’ll 1st of all if administrators can have cushy offices, why shouldn’t the police and fire stations be the best they can be for those who protect us. Not cushy, but up to date and effective for all activities involved. This should be a no brainier. The cost will be high, so are the upcoming builds of the new schools. Yet, with the schools if they were properly maintained from the beginning and if students who destroyed them were held accountable, they wouldn’t be neglected and would be able to stand the test of time. Next time you need a police officer, EMT or fireman/woman, that’s when you may appreciate them. You need to appreciate them now. They should have the best available to them.