Augusta officials praise new police station design, but concerns linger over timing and cost

An architectural rendering depicts designs for a new Augusta Law enforcement Department building off Willow Avenue. Rendering courtesy of Port Metropolis Architecture

AUGUSTA — The new Augusta Police Station planned off Willow Street will be created to previous.

It is prepared to be designed of synthetic stone and brick to match in with the existing architecture of the town have a two-story public lobby include things like a hardened exterior to guarantee it can retain operating through disasters both equally all-natural or manmade element a roof lined in electric power-making photo voltaic panels and be developed on ground that will be lifted about 3 ft to be above the h2o in even a 500-year-flood.

City officials praised the proposed style for the setting up at the website of a previous Hannaford, but are concerned about the timing of design, which could start off all around the conclusion of the year. They’re also apprehensive about the potential for value will increase pushing the task over funds because of to ongoing challenges with supply chains, and the high price tag of petroleum and constructing elements manufactured from it.

In September of last yr, the architect employed to design the new station, Andrew Hyland, a principal lover in Portland-based Port Metropolis Architecture, said he considered the $20.5 million the city has budgeted to create the new station was much more than ample. So, he was self-confident attributes these kinds of as solar panels, to increase the building’s prolonged-phrase sustainability, could be extra to the job and it could however arrive in under budget.

Hyland on Thursday advised town councilors that he, like them, has viewed with problem as the price of just about anything has greater and some materials, which includes constructing products, have been tricky to locate thanks to source-chain troubles. But he claimed he still feels comfy the challenge can be built with the $20.5 million voters approved for it in June 2021. He pointed out the design and style of the setting up was saved relatively very simple, and can use unique setting up elements if some products turn into more high priced than other folks, to make changes to check out to help you save resources and keep inside of that spending plan. He said, for example, from time to time steel has been less expensive than wood, and the project could use both wood or steel studs and trusses.

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“Prices are going nuts, but I nonetheless feel comfortable” in being within just spending plan, Hyland explained to city councilors for the duration of an update on the undertaking Thursday night. “There are actual concerns on supply-chain problems. I can’t regulate the selling price of merchandise. We’re ready to make adjustments and we can react and not get a completed product or service out and then come across out we have to take money out of it.”

The two-tale, 25,000-sq.-foot making as currently designed will have two elevators, an proof lab and management archives, interview rooms letting a number of persons to be interviewed by law enforcement at the identical time, a dispatch heart, a travel-thru sallyport to deliver people in custody into the creating, weapons storage, a exercise region, training area, and locker place.

Matt Nazar, the city’s enhancement director, mentioned the task could be completely ready for construction all around the conclude of the year and total 12 to 16 months after that.

“I’m hedging a very little because I’m keenly mindful of supply-chain troubles and it’s generating me a minimal anxious,” he reported.

Ward 3 Councilor Mike Michaud expressed issues that the city, in a market exactly where contractors are in substantial demand from customers, won’t be equipped to obtain a business to just take on the career by the end of the 12 months. On the other hand, Hyland explained he is presently viewing major desire in the most likely large-profile task from design managers, and he’s gotten weekly phone calls from them expressing curiosity.

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Even so, town councilors and law enforcement Chief Jared Mills appeared thrilled with Port City’s proposed layout, which they claimed delivers a extraordinary raise in the operation and security required in a community safety developing. Metropolis officials also claimed the constructing layout seems to be welcoming to the general public and matches in with existing area architecture, including the Inn at Metropolis Hall in a historic brick making throughout Willow Avenue from the web-site, which formerly was Augusta’s city hall and later on a police station.

“This building, hunting at the old police division across the avenue, and seeking at (Augusta Town Heart, which is across Cony Road from the site), I imagine this constructing matches to a T and kudos to you and your team for producing a setting up that seems to be like it belongs right here,” Michaud said. “I imagine it’s a gem.”

Mills explained Hyland fulfilled with virtually every person in the police section to make positive the style and design of the making achieved the desires of each and every division.

With an eye toward the upcoming, proposed amenities at the site contain a few parking ton chargers to electric power up electric law enforcement cruisers, which Hyland stated are very likely to be in use in the really near future.

The building’s rooftop photo voltaic panels proposed in the design and style would deliver electric power.

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The building will be designed to “Category 4” constructing specifications required for new general public protection services, with a hardened exterior intended to face up to organic disasters, bollards encompassing the structure to guard it from vehicles, and safe places, inside of, separated from the publicly obtainable lobby with its brightly-lit, two-story columned entrance, divided from the safe locations of the creating by fortified walls and bulletproof glass.

“It’s made to, in essence, the greatest standards so the building withstands whatever the climate could possibly throw at it, and that making stays purposeful and operational at all times,” Nazar said.

Hyland claimed that also requires the 7 Willow St. site on which the station will be built to be elevated up about 3 toes, to get it up higher than the floodwaters from the nearby Kennebec River that may be anticipated in a 500-12 months flood.

The up coming move in the job is for the town to employ a construction management agency to oversee development. Hyland and Nazar explained the design supervisor will be ready to set a firmer determine on the charge of building.

The 1962 previous Hannaford supermarket making on the site now will be demolished. An current main sewer line on the web page, buried a lot less than a foot beneath the latest parking whole lot, prompted the setting up to be found towards the back again of the house, and just one part of the sewer line will be moved to accommodate the station.

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