The Baldwin City Police Department has more than doubled in size since it moved into the 1,200-square-foot former flower shop that serves as its headquarters. The replacement of the building was a top priority on a capital improvement program list the Baldwin City Council developed three years ago.

Baldwin City — Baldwin City Police Chief Greg Neis can tell horror stories about what he considers the inadequacies of his department’s headquarters.

“There’s no room to split up groups or isolate anyone,” he said. “We had a family in here for a sexual-abuse case. The suspect was here. The girl was crying, the mother was crying, and in walks two people wanting VIN inspections on their vehicles.”

A 1,200-square-foot former flower shop at 811 Eighth St. is the headquarters for his force of nine full-time officers and two support staffers. He says the space is inadequate in many ways, but his biggest concern is safety.

The only security feature in the building is the bulletproof glass that the City of Eudora donated when its police department moved to its new headquarters, Neis said. The glass now screens the desk of the department’s administrative assistant from the front entry lobby. The office to the left of the entry doesn’t have a door, and the door to the right can’t be secured, he said.

“There’s no security inside the building,” he said. “All the officers’ desks are out where anyone walking in the front door can see them.”

The openness doesn’t lend itself to common police procedures. No private interview or interrogation room exists for the kinds of confidential conversations that occur in police stations, Neis said. The inability to separate quarreling parties is also a problem, as the incident Neis related indicates.

The station has only one office in which officers can tape interviews with witnesses or suspects, Neis said. With all the distractions that can occur in the small station, that is a hindrance to producing the kind of video evidence needed to get convictions in court.

“Juries want to see it on video,” he said. “They don’t trust what officers write down.”

Security concerns start before officers bring suspects into the station, Neis said. The station doesn’t have a drive-thru sally port that allows officers to escort arrested suspects from cars to headquarters in a secured enclosed space, he said.

The station lacks room for staff meetings or training, and it has no locker room where officers can change clothes or shower, Neis said. There is only one restroom, which can be awkward for the coed workforce, he said.

Storage space is nearly nonexistent, and much of the stolen property the department recovers has to be stored next door on the top floor of City Hall, Neis said.

The building also has structural problems. Neis said you can see through exterior walls in some places.

An additional problem is the lack of parking. Police officers use parking spaces behind the building that belong to the Masonic Lodge, and the department competes with City Hall for the limited parking in front of the building on Eighth Street, Neis said.

City leaders are aware of the headquarters’ many problems, and a new police station was at the top of a capital improvement project list that the Baldwin City Council developed in 2014. Baldwin City Mayor Marilyn Pearse said she remained committed to addressing the concern.

“It absolutely needs to be a priority,” she said. “I know a lot of people don’t know how bad the situation is. If they actually went there and toured it, I can’t imagine anyone would want to work in that environment.”

Despite the police station’s known shortcomings, there will be no discussion of replacing it until after the City Council and mayoral election in November, Pearse said. However, the mayor and Neis said the City Council’s recent approval of a contract to start construction on a new Baldwin City Public Works complex provided an opening to restart consideration of a new police station.

The public works headquarters was badly needed, too, Pearse said. The logic of putting it on top of the CIP list was that relocating public works from the 600 block of High Street would free up city-owned property for a new police station.

“We wouldn’t have to go to the expense of buying property for a station like Lawrence is dealing with,” the mayor said.

Use of that property once the new public works complex is completed in about a year would have the advantage of keeping the police headquarters downtown and near Baker University, Pearse said.

Neis can pull a conceptual plan from his desk that would do just that. Shared with the City Council two years ago, the plan by Lawrence architect Jay Zimmerschied would build a new police station on the site of the current public works brick warehouse on Sixth Street. It would also make use of the existing garage in the public works yard for police parking, with a sally port in the back of the building.

The cost of a new station was estimated at $1.8 million three years ago, although Zimmerschied told the council when he shared the conceptual plans that the cost could be reduced considerably if the city chose to use a prefabricated metal building. The downside was the limited lifespan of such structures, he said.

The City Council has discussed several funding options in the past. Those include a dedicated property tax mill levy or a mix of sales and property taxes. Should the city follow the example of the Lawrence City Commission and fund a new station solely through property taxes, it could do so without a referendum because state statute allows bonding for such public safety buildings without a public vote.

Although he is sensitive to funding concerns, Neis said, it is time for the city to come to grips with the need for a new police headquarters.

“It’s just not suitable for our needs,” he said. “It may have been good enough when we had a force of four full-time officers, but it’s not adequate for what we do today.”