The future of the aging North Bay Police Service headquarters was a priority at Wednesday’s Police Board meeting.
The North Bay Police Board is trying to digest a 200-plus page Police Facility Report, referred to as a "Facility Condition Assessment," with three different recommendations; two of which outline renovations to the current facility and the third to build a new facility at a different location yet to be determined.
"It’s not a new building assessment, it’s looking at the building that we have and how we’re going to deal with it in the future," said Shawn Devine, the North Bay Police Chief.
"The report is broken down into three solutions. One is a nine-million-dollar solution, the next being a 15 to 16 million-dollar solution. That is taking the existing building and providing the repairs or adjustments that are recommended and then a suggestion of 17.5 million dollars for a brand new building."
The report highlights the architectural concerns and states that many electrical and mechanical portions of the building are at end of their life cycle.
Those included HVAC, a fire suppression system, computer storage space, cell block upgrades, window, and doors.
The building is also reported to be having some issues because the facility has been settling for a number of years.
"Some of the issues that we have to deal with, that is in the back end of the building, we actually have the building coming down and resting on walls that weren’t designed to be support walls," Devine explained.
"We are dealing with having to file off doors because the building continues to settle and therefore affects the door openings. About five years ago or six years ago there was a water main break in the south-east corner of the building that we believe was related to the settling of the building, which caused extensive damage and costs for repairs."
The building was originally built in 1974 and was renovated in the early 2000's.
Devine says the timeline for the project would likely be three to five years.
