BERLIN – Community leaders gathered Wednesday to celebrate the long-awaited start of the town’s new police station with a groundbreaking ceremony on Decatur Street.
Construction of the new building, which is expected to be complete in early 2018, will enable Berlin’s police force to move out of its cramped space on William Street and into a state-of-the-art facility.
“This is a very important day for the law enforcement community,” Mayor Gee Williams said.
In Berlin, officials have been discussing the need for a new police station for years. The cramped space adjacent to town hall currently that’s been used by the town’s police since the 1960s is not only too small, it doesn’t meet the standards modern-day stations are required to meet.
The town took the first formal step toward a new facility in 2010 when it purchased roughly five acres of property on Decatur Street for $828,000.
Williams told Wednesday’s crowd that acquiring the land was made possible by casino revenues. While the town had struggled to make sure it received one of the local impact grants provided through casino revenue from Ocean Downs, the effort had paid off.
“Looking back it was a blessing for Berlin,” he said.
The town typically receives more than $200,000 a year in casino revenues. That money has been used to cover the cost of the land and will now be used to gradually pay off the $2.6 million construction cost of the new building. Williams said officials were committed to using the funding stream to support public safety.
“Berlin has tried to do what’s right with that money,” he said, adding that by using the casino revenue the town was not adding to the tax burden of its citizens to complete the project. “We’ve applied these revenues to a critical need for this community.”
Officials from Willow Construction, the company building the new 7,500-square-foot station, said site work would begin in early December. Construction should take 14-18 months.
“It’s a great experience to be involved in this type of project with the Town of Berlin,” said Eric Milhollan, senior project manager for Willow Construction. “It was an honor to be chosen.”
Willow Construction will work with Cambridge-based Crosby and Associates, the project’s architect, to complete the facility.
“We’ve worked with them before,” said Alan Brock of Crosby and Associates. “I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s going to turn out very nice.”
Brock’s company started designing the new station more than a year-and-a-half ago.
“We had done the new station in Hurlock which led us to an introduction to Chief Downing and Lieutenant Fisher,” Brock said. “It’s great to be able to do these facilities on the Eastern Shore.”
Downing says his officers are looking forward to working out of a facility with the safety and technology features needed in a police department today.
“We‘ve been excited through the whole process,” he said. “Now we’re just being patient.”
