Village Planning for New Police Department, Public Works Facility

When New Lenox’s current police department and public works facilities were opened in 1981, the village’s population was just a few thousand people, a fraction of what is it today.

Nearing 25,000 and expected to grow over the next 20 years, the village is projecting its needs and hoping to take advantage of vacant land now to start building new facilities. Although the village is still conducting needs analyses, weighing payment options and checking out possible areas to build, Mayor Tim Baldermann said there could be movement in the next year on $20 million or more in projects.

The hope for the village is that these new facilities will not only be more organized, efficient and safer than the existing locations, but also designed for future growth.

“They’ve outgrown their needs and we just need to make some updates,” Baldermann said. “As the town grows, we have to grow.”

‘It’s Just Kind of a Mess’

The Public Works Department, off Nelson Road and Country Creek Drive, resembles a junk yard, with cars spilling out of parking spots and miscellaneous piles of tires, trash and equipment strewn throughout the lot.

The department moved to its current location in 1981 to meet growing space needs, and before that was housed in a 1,500-square-foot garage at the water treatment plant. A second building has since been constructed on the current lot, giving public works about 20,000 square feet to work with. But the more land is annexed and the more people move here, more streets need salt and plowing and more maintenance is needed.

Public Works Supt. Ron Sly said a needs assessment of the department calls for a plan that could construct a new facility in phases, with the first being nearly 60,000 square feet and room to increase to about 86,000.

“It’s just kind of a mess out here,” Sly said. “There’s three groups of supervisors sitting on top of each other. It gets congested.”

The water, street and maintenance departments operate out of the current location. Not only is there a need for more organized and separate space for personnel, more parking and storage is needed for the growing public works fleet of vehicles (now about 150 pieces, including trucks and plows). Emergency services vehicles, old cars seized by police and surplus equipment also is there.

There isn't enough space for salt, either. The salt tower holds about 500 tons, while the village uses 3,000 to 3,500 tons. The extra salt is housed next to the building and covered with a tarp, which isn’t the best means of storage.

Sly said a new facility would incorporate future growth and hopefully have a dome that holds at least 5,000 tons of salt. A new location would also allow for savings through bulk fueling for the fleet of vehicles, something that isn't possible at the current site.

Not a 'Real Police Station’

The mayor knows what difference a new police station can make. When he started with the Chicago Ridge Police Department in 1988, he said it operated out of an old house. Due to inadequate space and safety measures, he said a prisoner once got out of handcuffs and escaped the department pretty easily.

“We weren’t in a real police station,” Baldermann said, noting that there are a lot of similar improvements needed at the , though not as drastic. “You’re trying to retrofit, and it’s not the way you would want it. You can’t just rehab that building and have that be enough.”

The current department, on West Haven Avenue, once housed the police and village offices. As the village grew, its offices consumed the entire first floor and relegated police to the basement. Even after staff moved into the new , the police had every intention of making the location off Haven a temporary home.

Deputy Chief Bob Pawlisz said the current office space is enough for the department—especially when so many employees are on patrol and out of the office—but safety and efficiency could be improved. One of the most pressing issues is the booking area, which is a tiny room without any barrier between an officer and a criminal.

With only two cells, the department can get into a predicament if multiple people are arrested at the same time. Men must be separated from women and juveniles separated from adults, restrictions that have caused issues in the past.

“If we have three people, we’ll have one in each cell and one out in the booking area,” Pawlisz said. “If I get more than three people, well, then I’m screwed.”

A new station ideally would have more interview rooms or juvenile detention areas that also could hold people if the situation called for it, Pawlisz said. Additionally, improvements would be made to security mechanisms on doors and sound barriers in interview rooms.

More storage space is needed. When evidence storage was expanded, it took up room in the department’s garage. The garage is filled with miscellaneous items, such as signs and bicycles, that ideally should be stored more neatly.

Those items can be a safety hazard, too. The garage is where prisoners are picked up and dropped off, and Pawlisz said there shouldn’t be anything around that could be used as a weapon.

More private space is needed as well, specifically for people filing reports or complaints, especially to keep them separated from others involved in the same incident or from people recently released from custody.

“The public should feel more comfortable and safe, of all places, at the police station,” Pawlisz said.

‘Let’s Strike Right Now’

The key to building new facilities, of course, is finding the money to do so. The village is analyzing its general fund balance and projecting additional sales tax revenue to fund these projects, which Baldermann said could cost $20 million to $25 million, including an extension to Nelson Road.

Sly said a preliminary analysis showed the new public works facility could cost at least $7 million, but Pawlisz said he couldn’t give an estimate yet. Realistically, Baldermann said, work could start on these projects within a year.

Instead of continuing to pay for minor upgrades when an overhaul is needed, he said the village wants to get moving on these projects while land and construction costs are cheaper and interest rates are low.

“Let’s strike right now while you can save the taxpayers money in the long run,” Baldermann said.

Besides finding money to pay for the projects, land must be purchased for the new facilities. Baldermann said the village has looked at a couple of locations, but couldn’t say where because the village hasn’t officially inquired about them—as both departments are working to determine how much space they will need.

Public works would prefer to be centralized in the village, but Sly said the west end of New Lenox, near Gougar Road, is a more likely location. He said he’d prefer be north of the EJ&E railroad tracks to avoid lengthy stoppages.

Pawlisz said the police would like to remain close to the department’s current location, but he knows vacant land is at a premium in the center of town.

"It’s difficult to make projections for what we’ll need in 20 years,” Pawlisz said. “But if we wait an additional 10 to 15 years, the vacant land might not be available.”