OVIEDO, Fla. – Six months after voters resoundingly rejected Oviedo’s request to tear down the city’s 3-decade-old police department headquarters and rebuild it almost quadruple the size for $47 million, the city is revealing Plan B – and five other smaller, less-expensive options.
The police department facility is 34 years old, too small and almost unusable according to the police chief. And the staff has swelled to keep up with Oviedo’s explosive growth.
But Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek said she and her fellow councilmembers got the message last November.
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“The message was $49 million for a new police station is not something the people of Oviedo are willing to pay for at this time,” Sladek said. “We can’t have a leaky roof on our police station so we need to do something.”
The city’s initial proposal called for 42,000 square feet of space. A consultant has now advised councilmembers the police department can get by with only 28,800 square feet for about half the cost or less.
“The police department says this is enough for the foreseeable future,” Sladek said. “Our population let off for a few years and it’s inching back up and as some of these new apartment complexes come online we’ll get 1,000 people per year pretty consistently but so much of our city is locked up in exclusionary single family zoning. It’s going to be very difficult to increase the population very much.”
Monday night, Sladek and councilmembers will debate six simpler, cheaper options, presented to them by design architects ZHA.
“...taking into consideration subsequent revisions and updates, the ZHA team will present details related to what they recommend as the optimum square footage, 28,800 sf, to meet the Police Department’s current and future needs as well as the following,” ZHA wrote in its proposal to the City.
The city could consider to rebuild the police department headquarters on its current site, build somewhere else and even sell the old site, or build an annex and or renovate the existing building:
- Renovate existing Public Safety Building only (19,363 square feet) $14,322,773
- Add a 10,000sf Annex Building only (10,000 square feet) $10,258,565
- Renovate existing Public Safety Building and add new adjacent Annex building (29,363 square feet)) $22,667,993
- Build new Public Safety Building (28,800 square feet)) $25,812,622
- Discuss real estate options resulting from potential decisions
- Discuss options available to the city related to a P3 structure (public private partnership)
Sladek said she prefers to rebuild the police department building somewhere else to better utilize the prime commercial space upon which it currently sits.
If councilmembers end up choosing the cheapest option – adding an annex but not touching the existing police building, they could build it without involving voters. In 2016, Oviedo residents voted to approve the city borrowing $11.5 million for a new police headquarters. The city never borrowed the money because $11.5 million wasn’t enough to build what the Oviedo wanted.
Monday night’s city council workshop begins at 5:30 p.m. at Oviedo City Hall and is open to the public.
Last year, management at the Oviedo Mall offered the city an option to renovate the old Sears building for a new city hall and police department. Councilmembers quickly dismissed that option.
On Monday, Sladek said repurposing the mall building was not an option.
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