McMinnville Aldermen say they want to move ahead with finding the best options for the city’s police department in a new facility.
McMinnville Vice Mayor Steve Harvey said the city has wrestled with many options to move the police station for several years. Harvey said now is the time move forward and make a decision.
“We’ve got the property on Bell Street that looks like it will be a good spot, and it’s just been a long time coming for the police station to have their own permanent home,” Harvey said.
McMinnville explored moving the police station into the old water department building on Bell Street several years ago. Harvey said the board wants to move forward with remodeling that building as it could be a cost-saving option.
“I think we are gonna talk about it at the next meeting,” Harvey said. “I’ve always been in favor of at least exploring the option of remodeling that existing building because that building is about 40,000 square feet, and the police would only need about half of that, and to me, a good option is at least exploring the option of a remodel because it could potentially save our taxpayers quite a bit of money.”
Architectural plans in 2019 revealed that a remodel of the building would have cost an estimated $5 million. Harvey said the city will have to figure out where the funds will come from.
“There are always some possibilities of some grants out there,” Harvey said. “They are significant, but it’s not gonna be a majority of where the money comes from. The money will come from, you know, out of the general fund, which will have to be borrowed. I mean, we will have to borrow the money to do this and then pay it back.”
Harvey said he is not sure about the rest of the board, but he does want to see if the city could possibly get better pricing on a potential remodel of the old water department building.