Construction of $18.5M police headquarters to begin soon; city leaders to consider adding $1.3M to expand project

photo by: Hoefer Wysocki

This rendering shows a design concept for a new Lawrence Police Department headquarters in northwest Lawrence.

Construction on the city’s new $18.5 million police headquarters will begin next month, though the project could still add more than $1 million to its budget if city leaders decide to expand it.

As currently proposed, the first phase of the police headquarters project will allow the police department to move all its services — including its patrol, evidence and records divisions — out of the downtown building it currently shares with Douglas County. Under the $18.5 million price tag, the first phase does not enable the police to move services out of its training center in west Lawrence.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission unanimously approved an agreement setting the project’s guaranteed maximum price with Turner Construction at about $16.1 million. It also approved an architectural services agreement with the firm Hoefer Wysocki for $282,310. Additional costs, related to design and construction services and the provision of furniture and equipment, bring the total project budget to $18.5 million, according to a city staff memo to the commission.

Lawrence Police Department Head Quarters Video Walk-through

However, as is, the headquarters includes a significant amount of “shelled” or unfinished space — for police investigations, administration and a crime lab — that city staff and architects told commissioners would be cheaper to finish now rather than later. Finishing the spaces for investigations, administration and the crime lab would allow those divisions to move their operations into the new headquarters building. The memo said that finishing those three elements of the building and adding landscaping irrigation and traffic control arms for secured parking would add $1.3 million to the project. The headquarters will be located on undeveloped land owned by the city at 5100 Overland Drive, which is behind the Walmart near Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.

Municipal Services and Operations Assistant Director Melinda Harger told commissioners that city staff would like to bring a proposal back for their consideration in a couple of months to show how the additional components could be funded. If commissioners are interested, Harger said city staff would be able to bring that proposal back to them in October.

“There are some significant cost increases if you don’t do it in this construction contract due to mobilization in future years, when you have to rebid it, and costs of inflation, depending on how far it’s pushed out,” Harger said.

Ken Henton, an architect with Hoefer Wysocki, encouraged the commission to “strongly consider” the possibility of expanding phase one of the project because of the additional cost of undertaking those aspects later. He said even though the shelled spaces would be unfinished, there would still have to be sprinkler heads, temporary lighting, temporary mechanical systems and temporary partitions. In addition to inflation, he said it would cost the city money to install and take out those elements.

“I know that we are not trying to pressure you to make decisions, but we are actually going to install stuff in this building that’s going to have to be torn out when you go back to finish the space,” Henton said. “That’s why, when you look at the numbers, the numbers are much greater.”

According to estimates provided to the commission, all the possible additions would cost a total of about $1.4 million if they were completed during this phase of the project. On Tuesday, the commission decided to forgo three items, which Harger said were more cosmetic than the others, bringing the cost of the remaining possible additions down to about $1.3 million. Commissioners agreed that they would like to review possible funding options at a future meeting for the remaining items.

Future phases of the police headquarters are not funded, and there is no timeline for when those phases will begin. The commission was provided estimates for what each element would cost in 2021, 2022 and 2023. For instance, the most expensive element, the investigations area, is estimated to cost $682,691 in 2020, $812,306 in 2021, $846,441 in 2022, and $880,576 in 2023. If the city were to wait until 2023 to finish all the items, it would cost about $2.17 million instead of $1.3 million, according to the estimate.

The city estimates that construction of the headquarters will begin in September and be complete by November 2020, according to the memo. The city would take a few months to transition to the new building, which would open to the public in early 2021.

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