Secure parking. More space for everything. A system that pumps water through a series of underground wells to heat and cool all that space.
Nampa Police Lt. Brad Daniels, project manager for the new Hugh Nichols Public Safety Building, has multiple answers to the question, “What’s the best thing about this building?”
And then there’s the sunshine that streams in through large windows in nearly every area of the massive building, which pairs with an even more massive parking structure to fill the block between 8th and 9th avenues on 2nd Street South.
“That’s one of the best things about this building — the natural light,” said Police Chief LeRoy Forsman, blinking into the sun Tuesday during a tour of the structure his department will start moving into on Jan. 17.
In comparison, the current police station has the feel of a bunker, with virtually no windows around its 22,000 square feet of space. That’s a little more than one-third of the area offered by its replacement, which also will house fire department administrators and the city’s information technology department.
The project boasts a new, web-based phone system, a greatly improved evidence-storage system and numerous other updates to make the department’s efforts more efficient and effective.
And it’s all designed to accommodate new growth and new technology over the next 30 years, Forsman said. The new phone system can accommodate video-conferencing capability in the future, and the new crime lab has a de-ionized water system to facilitate DNA processing once that equipment is added.
REASONS FOR THE MOVE
City leaders have seen the need for a new police station since the early 2000s, when rapid population growth and the accompanying need for more officers quickly overfilled the downtown police station, Forsman said.
Built in 1977, the structure was revamped in 1997, when the Nampa Police Department had 80 or 90 employees, he said.
“We have 172 employees now,” he said, noting that all sectors of the department, from records to dispatch to administration, have long since outgrown their allotted space.
A new public safety building was second on the priority list when the city formed a downtown urban renewal district, Nampa Development Corp., in 2006. A new city library initially ranked first, but leaders soon switched the order to take advantage of the perceived commercial desirability of the central downtown block where the police station now sits. Ringed by busy arterials — 2nd and 3rd streets and 11th and 12th avenues — the approximately 2-acre site has been dubbed “the pivot block.”
Urban renewal districts get their money from new development and increased tax revenue within their boundaries, and the NDC aims to clear the several city-owned buildings off the downtown “pivot block” to make way for private development. Coupling that block with an adjacent half-block the city purchased as a future library site, the NDC has put out a call for developers interested in a project that would include a new library along with commercial, office and/or other private development. The deadline for responses is Jan. 12.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
With features such as energy-efficient windows, indoor lights that turn on and off automatically, adjustable sunshades and an efficient closed-loop cooling and heating system, the building secured silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
“Even though it’s a lot bigger, I’d say it’s probably going to cost less to maintain just because of the way the system is put together,” said Ken Fisher, who’s working for the NDC as the owner’s representative on the construction project.
Even the framework beneath the block and brick veneer was chosen with the environment in mind — cellular steel beams to minimize the amount of metal required to support the structure, Fisher said.
Efficiency of another sort is demonstrated throughout the project. One example: two-sided lockers allow officers to securely place evidence from crime scenes in on one side and evidence technicians to remove it from the other side.
“Right now we use old gym lockers and padlocks,” Daniels said.
The greatly expanded evidence-storage area will be a huge plus in the new building, Forsman said, noting “we currently house almost 23,000 pieces of evidence.”
ALMOST READY
Construction crews are hurrying to finish details inside and outside the building, and Fisher said the project will be “substantially complete” in the next two weeks before police start moving in.
Dispatch and records will be the first sections of the department to move in, Forsman said, and the move should be completed in about 10 days.
All department services will remain available during the move, he said, although the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office will briefly take over Nampa dispatch services during the transition — possibly for as little as 24 hours.
And the police force is more than ready to make the move.
“There’s an obvious excitement in the ranks,” Daniels said.
Kristin Rodine: 377-6447
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