Hood River Police Department Seeks New Facility
Source. Top Rated Site that will potentially be the site of a new police station. To take a virtual tour of the current police facility, click here.
The Hood River Police Department which is currently located int he daylight basement of City Hall, is engaged in new facility planning. The new facility could also potentially house Columbia Gorge Children’s Advocacy Center and a County Courthouse, although planning around including CGCAC and the County in the project is only in the preliminary stages. The Voter Approved General Obligation Bond which would fund the new facility building project won’t be on ballots until after preliminary design and costs estimates have been made.
Planning for the building of a new facility has been underway since 2018 when Hood River City Council prioritized planning for a future facility as a part of it’s 2018 Goal Setting session. In 2019 the architectural firm Mackenzie was awarded the contract to “complete a space needs analysis, site evaluation, and preliminary concept design.”
Mackenzie’s initial space need estimate for the new police station was 16,124 square feet. This was later revised down to 13,178 square feet in an updated space needs report from August 2019. City council members also visited newly constructed police facilities in the Sandy, Rockwood and Canby as a part of the finalizing space needs and understanding the organizational flow and layout of other offices. The new facilities minimum useful life is estimated at 40 years.
Several locations for the new police station have been discussed. In May and August of 2020 site rankings and selections were discussed by the city council. The Columbia Lot which sits between 5th and 7th streets between Columbia and Cascade Ave is ranked first in the site evaluations listed on the City of Hood River’s Website. In addittion, according to the City, the Columbia Lot is a large enough parcel that all displaced parking could be replaced on site with a multi-level parking garage.
“The Columbia lot is the highest scoring location,” said Will Norris, Hood River Assistant City Manager, “The City is hiring an architectural firm to develop a preliminary design and cost estimate for the Columbia Lot, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Police Station will be located there for sure. We’ll learn a lot through the preliminary design phase. It’s possible the preliminary design will identify a compelling reason to switch to a different location, but there is no way to know without going through the process with a professional architect.”
In August, the City was also approached by Columbia Gorge Children’s Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization that interviews suspected victims of child abuse for legal proceedings, about potentially sharing space in the new facility. CGCAC’s space needs are estimated at 4,000 square feet.
The City is also simultaneously exploring options to partner with the County. In September 2020 Hood River County Commissioners discussed the possibility for a joint courthouse, police station and Sheriff’s Office. The County Commissioners ruled in favor of the idea but “did not want to slow the City’s timeline.”
“There are a lot of “ifs” with a City/County joint project, but it will likely involve a full re-evaluation of sites given the much larger space needs of a joint facility. Under all circumstances, the City will go through the required land use application process (just like any other property owner) once a development proposal is finalized. Oregon land use rules include a significant amount of public process in and of itself,” said Norris.
Norris said that COVID-19 had highlighted the need for the new facility, “The pandemic emphasized why it is so important, not just from a functional perspective but also hygienically, to have adequate workspace. The new police facility will provide new building functionalities that do not exist today, such as secure and technology enabled interview rooms, community meeting space, and secure parking, but it will also simply mean more physical space for Officers and better ventilation. This will mean a healthier work environment for these first responders. An ancillary benefit of moving the police out of City Hall is increased room for Building, Planning, and Administrative staff who in many cases have had to sit two to a single office in recent years.
When asked if the facility planning process had been affected at all by Black Lives Matter and Gorge Lives Matter movements Norris responded “The City of Hood River has a long-standing commitment to incorporating equity and inclusion in every aspect of municipal operations. This ethic was built into the existing space needs program, most explicitly in the addition of a public meeting room to facilitate community policing strategies that cannot be accommodated in the current facility.”
“The most recent Black Lives Matter movement was an opportunity to renew and publicly demonstrate the City’s commitment to social justice, which it did through a Use of Force Review and City Council Resolution on Racial and Social Equity,” said Norris. “As the City’s basic space needs are translated into a preliminary building design, the organization’s commitment to equity and inclusion will be front and center. The process will also have public outreach components and we hope the public will be involved in creating a facility that fosters trust and partnership between the Police and Hood River Community.”
The bond which would fund the project is still a ways away. “The City is working with November 2021, as the goal (for the bond),” said Norris, “There is still a lot of work to do so timelines are flexible at this point.”
According to the City of Hood River Website, “Once a site is selected and preliminary design complete, City Council will decide whether to seek voter approval of a general obligation bond. The City’s 2008 Fire Station bonds will retire in 2022 creating a natural opportunity to ask voters to extend the City’s bonding authority for the community’s first-ever purpose-built police facility. An analysis by the City’s financial advisory firm, Piper Sandler & Co, calculates that existing bonding authority will (could) generate approximately $14.3 million (for the police station) if current tax rates are extended for an additional 20 years.” If bonding authority is not extended past 2022 for a police facility then property taxes will decrease.
Read more about the new Police Station and FAQ about the Police Facility Planning Here.
