OCEAN CITY — City Council approved contracts to design a new boardwalk police facility to handle the expanded duties during the busy summer months and for a redesign and renovation of the outdated police station on Central Avenue.
Both contracts were awarded to William McLees Architectural in the consent agenda at Thursday evening’s council meeting.
The first, for $193,750, is to design a 7,000-square-foot police substation at Eighth Street and the Boardwalk on city-owned property.
It would have 2,000 square feet of vehicle storage on the ground level and 2,000 square feet of single-user restrooms at the boardwalk level.
The second and third levels would have a triage room for walk-in complaints, two holding rooms and one holding cell, locker room with showers (one for males and one for females) for 55 to 60 lockers, an evidence room, armory, captains office, supervisors offices, work space for the police, interview rooms and a break room/classroom.
The second contract, for $81,500, is to look at design additions and renovations to the Ocean City Public Safety Building on Central Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets. This is an early step in making the old building that houses the police department and municipal court into a more modern facility.
City officials have talked about various options and locations for years to give the police department a modern facility, but none of them has ever come to fruition. One of the most recent proposals was to build an entirely new, comprehensive public safety building housing the police and fire departments at the site of the current fire department headquarters between Asbury and West avenues and Fifth and Sixth streets.
That was shot down by City Council as being too expensive and disruptive because it would have moved the skateboard park and placed a police station directly across from the Ocean City Primary School.
“Several different locations for a new police station have been considered over the years, and the administration is recommending a project that will achieve the goals of both the police department and the community,” Mayor Jay Gillian wrote the day after the council meeting in his weekly letter to the community.
“The administration has developed a concept for modern police facilities that involves two existing sites: the police station on the 800 block of Central Avenue and the substation on the Boardwalk at Eighth Street. The Boardwalk facility would house an enhanced substation that would also include public restrooms,” Gillian wrote. “This facility would be the center for seasonal police operations and would relieve the need to provide the necessary space for these operations within the main facility.
“The city would also proceed with a significant renovation of the current building on Central Avenue. This concept was advanced and reviewed in detail by senior staff with architectural and structural professionals consulting,” he wrote. “The designs are just the first step in what will be a long process, and more information will be available as they take shape.”
During the summer months, the Ocean City Police Department is enhanced with scores of temporary police officers to handle summer crowds. Much of their work is on the busy Boardwalk. Having them at a substation would relieve the crowding at the current building on Central Avenue.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff