As Millsboro police look forward to moving into the new, 13,000-square-foot, $9.3 million police station early next year, local residents are watching its construction, on West Railroad Avenue, across the street from Dairy Queen.
“It’s moving along,” Police Chief Brian Calloway told the Coastal Point this week.
“Right now they are doing all the underground work — plumbing, electricity. If it gets really cold, that could delay things, but it has not been terribly cold and they’ve been able to press forward,” he said about the Delmarva Veterans Builders contractors who will pour the concrete pad after the underground work is finished. The walls will be built off-site, probably by a subcontractor, then put up.
“Delmarva Veteran Builders are there every day, and I’m being told we’re in a good place. The weather has not been terrible. We’ve had some rain, but it hasn’t been that bad. There have been a few change orders here and there — mostly small — but it hasn’t changed the cost to build,” Calloway said.
The police force will be happy to move into the new building, he added, especially since officers have long outgrown the existing station, at 307 Main Street, where there is one meeting room that is also used as a lunchroom and place where officers talk to victims and have departmental gatherings. The new building will have a conference room designated for conferences and places to conduct soft interviews if somebody reports being victimized or goes into the station to report a crime.
There should be room for exercise equipment, since every year officers and the chief are required to pass physical fitness tests and health assessments. Currently, exercise equipment is in a meeting room at town hall, while a small closet at the current police department is where Calloway stores items including computers and ammunition. A basketball court was discussed but is not in the plan. It can be added later, the chief said.
Groundbreaking for the new building was in October, and the lot was cleared because existing trees were in the way.
“We couldn’t build around them. They were right in the center, but there will be a design for landscaping and grass, trees and grass. That has to be approved, with drainage,” he said.
The Town owns the land where the new agency headquarters will be and formerly leased it to a company that conducted water testing, so wells on the property had to be relocated and some removed.
After much discussion during the past couple years, and a variety of possible designs for the police department, the final design includes a sallyport, offices and cubicles, workstations for officers, exercise and community rooms, separate areas for male and female suspects who have been arrested and an area for juvenile offenders.
The outside will be in hues of brown, with brick and stone, and the interior will be drywall and shades of gray and blue that Calloway called “very functional.”
Calloway has said he wants to see the building named for a well-known Millsboro native but hasn’t yet revealed who he has in mind.
