Police Department Eyes Major Expansion of HQ

By Alakananda Mookerjee

03/08/2007 10:00:00 AM EST

The police headquarters on Hecker Avenue has undergone multiple renovations since its construction in 1932, but arguably none as wide-ranging and comprehensive as one being currently sought.

At Monday's Board of Selectmen meeting, Brian Humes of Jacunski Humes Architects, a Newington-based firm, presented the board with a blueprint of what a more modern and an expanded and technically upgraded department would look like. At Police Chief Duane Lovello's urging last year, the architects were hired to draw up possible improvements to the headquarters building.

"These designs are based on projections of what the department might need in the next 10 to 20 years from now," Humes said.

The new facility promises to meet the current and the future needs of the department, he added.

"We don't want to make the mistakes that we made in the past. We don't want piecemeal renovation after renovation," Lovello said.

Based on a thorough space-need assessment -- conducted between April and September 2006 -- the firm ascertained that a police department the size of Darien would require a floor area of 36,600 sqare feet, nearly twice its present size of 19,000 square feet.

"We are talking about a fairly significant difference," Lovello said.

Selectwoman Barbara Thorne said, "I had doubts of you could fit it (the new facility) into the present site," concurring with Humes and Lovello on the need for a larger area.

Citing acute space-crunch as the core problem, Humes said the present facility lacked adequate office space, room for security and confidentiality, area for proper prisoner holding and detention, storage of evidence and property.

It also has a less-than-desirable firearms training area, Humes said. The department has two firearms training ranges, one indoor and another outdoor, but both of these suffer from inadequacies.

The indoor range, housed in the basement, allows for basic training but its 50- foot length renders it unsuitable for firearms certification. The defect with the other, built in 1972, is that it is a source of noise pollution in the neighborhood and it is also not conducive to all weather conditions.

The new structure tackles these issues in a single sweep by doing away with the outdoor range altogether and enlarging the present indoor range by another 25 feet to 75 feet.

"It will be sized for firearms certification," Humes said.

Also, it will be a 24/7 facility, capable of handling practice both during day and night.

Concerned that it may be an environmental eyesore to its soon-to-be next-door neighbor, the new Darien Library, a member of the audience asked if the new police department would be eco-friendly.

"We are delighted to be next door to the new police department. I think it would be great to have municipal services close by," said Louise Berry, director of the Darien Library.

"There are some things that are possible and some that are not," Humes responded.

Another highlight of the next-generation facility is that it will increase the parking lots, taking it from its existing level of 59 spaces to 74 spaces, of which 16 spaces would be reserved for the public and the remaining 58 spaces would be for staff and official vehicles.

Explaining the need for more space, Lovello said the number of police officers had climbed from a mere handful in the 1950s to 51 officers today.

So far, the police department has seen four renovations, the first one being in 1950, that added 1,275 square feet of garage space.

The last major change took place in 1987, when the lobby was created and the former Circuit Court was supplanted by staff offices and locker rooms.

"We look forward to the next step," First Selectwoman Evonne Klein said.

That will entail obtaining a cost estimate for the project.

Jacunski Humes Architects will hire the services of KV Associates, a Boston-based project management company to provide the town with the funds necessary for the project.

"We should have that in the next four to five weeks," Humes said.

If the renovations are carried out, the new facility would be to be situated at the same location. The reasons Lovello cited for not wanting to relocate were: one, the present address, on account of its central location, provided "rapid access to all other parts of town," and two, attempting to acquire a site in another section of town would have been "hugely expensive."