Brock wanted to know what council’s site preference was so that the city could begin design of the new police facility.
When police Chief Bob Buchanan was asked what his preference was, he said it could go anywhere but he preferred the central location at the park.
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Brock said the site would be on Main Street (Cincinnati-Dayton Road) north of the park entrance driveway, and just down the road from the Monroe City Building.
He said the design of the new facility will take about a year and that construction would be in 2020.
The city’s police department headquarters was built in 1999 to house 18 police staffers. The building is now home to 40 employees, according to Police Chief Bob Buchanan.
City officials had looked are reusing the former IGA grocery story on Cincinnati-Dayton Road as a possible location for the police department.
“We compared the cost of constructing new on each site vs the cost of purchase and renovation of the IGA,” Brock said. “After that analysis, building new was a lower overall cost and gave more flexibility of design for the purposes of the facility.”
In an analysis of the two sites that included building, site and contingency costs, locating the new police station at the school would have cost between $7.57 million and $8.31 million; the cost for the park location ranged between $7.31 million and $8.05 million.
The cost of locating the the police station and renovating the IGA grocery store would have cost between $4.72 million and $6.41 million.
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