FRANKFORT, Ind – A three-and-a-half-year search for the best location to construct a $7.2 million new Frankfort police department came to an end Monday, at the Skanta Theater located in the Frankfort Community Public Library when the Frankfort City Council received word from Frankfort Police Chief Scott Shoemaker – the Community Foundation of Howard County had accepted the City’s offer to purchase land for $200,000 that morning.
The 7.71 acres of land is located on the northside of State Rd 28 West between Victory Chapel to the east and Brock Grain Systems to the west. The parcel is bounded by State Rd 28 West to the south and the railroad tracks to the north.
The decision to make the offer came during the September 28th meeting of the City Council after having exhausted other alternatives, such as remodeling the current police department, the use of the old city power location on Washington Ave, the former Kyger school property on Third St, a parcel located at the airport, and most recently the old CVS west building.
The money to purchase the land will be spread out over two-years – the first, a payment to be held in escrow within 15-days of Monday in the amount of $100,000, and the remaining balance in 2021.
“I’m excited,” said Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets. “We did get the approval today (Monday) from the Community Foundation to accept our offer. It was $200,000. We will give them a $100,000 this year, and then next year in February we will go ahead and give the other $100,000 and we’ll take possession of the land.”
Chief Shoemaker is hopeful the timeline to send the project out to bid can be leveraged with the work that has previously been completed by the architects – KJG out of Lafayette, Indiana, and Zimmerman Architectural Studios based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two firms have previously completed multiple designs of a Frankfort police department dating back to September 2018.
“I have asked the architects to put together a proposal of what our net costs are for them,” said Chief Shoemaker while addressing the Council members. “We have spent a lot of time and a lot of money on this in the last three, three and a half years.
“So, I have asked them to use what space needs analysis we’ve already done and put that on that spot (the land being purchased) in terms of us being able to see it being and then we will go from there. That way we don’t spend a lot of time, money, and effort on making a lot of drastic changes.”
After the meeting, Chief Shoemaker addressed how he envisions the layout of the new police department.
“Now, we move on to designing a building that will go on this particular spot,” said Chief Shoemaker. “All the buildings we’ve designed up to this point were one-story long buildings. We’re going to look at a two-story building and then have a lot of space in the back to have a maintenance area and a parking area. So that is really exciting.”
Chief Shoemaker continued by speaking about how the department would like to see evidence stored.
“We will look at the layout – we want it to be closer,” said Chief Shoemaker. “We want short term evidence to go into a locker, and that locker will only open from the other side – the lab people would take that evidence out. Right now we can’t do any of that. We’ll have to work within the budget. Last looked, we had about $7.2 to $7.5 million to build this.”
Chief Shoemaker concluded by saying, “Hopefully, they can do that in four months.” The “they” and “that” relates to the architects being able to have a finished design that can be spent out to bid. “And, breaking ground in June or July (2021).”
