At the old Kansas University Public Safety Office, the evidence-processing room was a converted shower stall.

Six sergeants shared one room as an office. The only redeeming quality of that room was that it was reputed to have been Wilt Chamberlain’s dorm room his freshman year.

To conduct an interview with a victim or witness, officers had to kick someone out of an office temporarily.

“Everything we did was on the dorm-room scale,” Chief Ralph Oliver said.

Now, after more than 20 years of claustrophobic crime-fighting atop Carruth-O’Leary Hall, the police department has moved to a more spacious home in the renovated former KU printing-services building at 1501 Crestline Drive.

The move wrapped up Friday, as officers wheeled in carts piled with evidence that included a golf putter, drug paraphernalia, bolt cutters, boxes of clothing and an ax.

The move and renovation, expected to cost $650,000, increases the department’s space from roughly 7,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet.

“There was no question that they needed both additional space and better space,” said Don Steeples, KU’s vice provost for scholarly support, who oversees campus space allocation.

One advantage of the new space, Oliver said, is that student workers who monitor campus surveillance cameras will be in the same room as dispatchers. The office also has a conference room, which Oliver said could be used for training with on-campus groups such as fraternities and sororities.

The locker room includes a shower, something officers didn’t have at the old office. The wooden lockers were handcrafted by KU Facilities Operations workers, with built-in shoe lockers and electrical outlets for charging phones.

A vestibule at the building’s public entrance will be open around the clock.

Steeples said there has been no decision yet about what will take the police department’s place in Carruth-O’Leary.