Moscow’s new police station taking shape
Construction of facility south of town expected to be done by June
MOSCOW — Construction of the new Moscow Police Department on the south end of town is progressing as planned and still on schedule to be completed in June.
Bill Belknap, deputy city supervisor of community planning and design, said in an email Thursday that the main building footings and foundation walls, as well as underground utility service installations, have been completed.
He said under-slab plumbing and electrical, steel frame and final site grading will take place over the next two months and installation of the exterior building’s shell, glazing and finish, as well as construction of the outbuilding, will be finished by the end of the year. Construction on the facility, located on the corner of South Main Street/U.S. Highway 95 and Southview Avenue, started this summer.
The main police facility will be 15,232 square feet and the storage and evidence processing outbuilding will be 3,042 square feet.
Myrtle Street, which runs between Southview Avenue and Palouse River Drive on the east side of the police station, is paved and should be open in the next couple of weeks, Belknap said.
The police station will cost almost $7.3 million. The Moscow City Council in May accepted the low base bid of $7,278,000 from Wellens Farwell Inc. of Enterprise, Ore., and approved two alternates to the project.
One alternative includes adding triple-paned windows instead of double-paned ones, which will cost $11,300, and the other is changing one of the proposed secured gates to a cheaper option, which will save the city $7,882, for a total project amount of $7,281,418. The council also allowed staff to execute construction change orders not to exceed 5 percent of the total project amount.
Moscow voters passed a 10-year, $9.64 million general obligation bond in May 2019 to fund the construction of the police facility, renovation of the existing police station on Fourth Street to fit the city office needs now proposed at the Sam Haddock Building and minor repairs to the Paul Mann Building next to City Hall.
The Moscow City Council in June approved a purchase and sale agreement to buy the Haddock Building from Gritman Medical Park LLC for $875,000. The sale recently closed so the city now owns the building — on the corner of Washington and Fifth streets across the street from the Federal Building — and it will be remodeled to accommodate city offices.
The Fourth Street building renovations were estimated to cost about $1.5 million, but the city will save $200,000 because the cost of acquisition and renovation of the Haddock Building is estimated at $1.3 million, a city document stated.
The council can choose to sell the Fourth Street building and make it available for other uses. If the city council elects to sell the building, the proceeds of that sale could further reduce the cost of the project.
City Supervisor Gary Riedner said in June that the Haddock and Mann buildings can be repurposed and occupied before the new police station is completed next year. The remodeling of the Fourth Street facility would not have been able to start until police had left the building.
