City considers new public safety building

Police Chief Jim Roberson has to drive 10 minutes across Homewood to talk to many of his officers. 

The center of Homewood’s police activity is the department’s headquarters on 29th Avenue South, but the building no longer has room to house motorcycle scouts, traffic patrol, narcotics, warrant detail or the training center.

The department has grown so large that it no longer fits in the original headquarters, which was built in 1980. The police department currently has 102 employees who answered 38,759 calls and issued 11,212 traffic citations in 2014, according to numbers provided by Sergeant Andrew Didcoct. These operations are spread out across four rented or city-owned buildings on 29th Avenue South, Oxmoor Boulevard, Citation Court and Bagby Drive.

“If you ever took a tour of this place, you’d see immediately that we’re overcrowded,” Roberson said. “We’ve outgrown this place to the point that I’ve had to parcel different pieces of this department out.”

The city is now taking the first steps toward bringing the police department back together in a new public safety building. Finance Department Director Melody Salter said the finance committee decided to carry over $30,000 in the fiscal year 2015 budget for a feasibility study. The study would include a needs assessment for the police department and cost estimates for a new building.

The feasibility study was originally budgeted for the 2014 fiscal year but was never carried out. Ward 5 Place 2 Representative Peter Wright said this is not the first time a new building has been discussed, and the study does not mean that a construction project will definitely be approved. 

If the city moves forward with the project, Roberson said there’s not enough land at the 29th Avenue South property to tear down the existing three-story headquarters and construct a new building that can meet the department’s needs. He believes the most likely spot for a new public safety headquarters is a city-owned lot at the intersection of Bagby Drive and West Valley Avenue, but at this point there is no formal list of possible locations.

Aside from space constraints, Roberson said the issues with the current police headquarters start right when people walk in the door. Instead of being greeted by an officer in a lobby, visitors stand in the hallway and use a telephone to talk to police and gain access to the rest of the building.

Inside, Roberson’s office doubles as a small conference room, and the jail no longer adequately accommodates prisoners. The cells were built to hold a higher number of male than female inmates, but the ratio has changed since 1980. Roberson said at times the police have had to relocate male inmates to make room for the female ones. 

Additionally, the maximum capacity is 24 people, and he said there have been times in the past few years when the police have had to house as many as 39 inmates at once. In the busy months of August and September, the jail is almost always at its limit.

“During those times, we’re bumping right at max capacity,” Roberson said.

Storage is also a problem. The department’s warehouse is overflowing and is developing a mold problem. The headquarters has 12 parking spaces, and one interview room doubles as a polygraph room. Sometimes, the police take people to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office because it has better polygraph capabilities.

“[The police headquarters] just doesn’t fit the purposes of the Homewood Police Department in 2015,” Roberson said.

Roberson also has a wish list for the potential new building. A larger conference room and employee break and fitness rooms are on the list, along with training facilities that can accommodate more than the current 25-person limit. A lobby staffed with officers or volunteers to help the public would also be a great benefit, he said. 

Extra space is needed in several places: jail cells, parking, the property room, the armory and extra land to plan for future growth. Roberson would also like a covered carport so the officers could fill their gas tanks and unload prisoners in inclement weather.

“There’s a lot of things a building like that would allow us,” Roberson said.

Since a new public safety building isn’t even guaranteed yet, Roberson will have to wait a while before finding out if he gets the items on his wish list. He’s excited, though, about the possibility of a single, centralized headquarters and the effect it could have on both morale and management.

“It’d be great if I could just get on an elevator or climb steps [to visit the divisions],” Roberson said. “I’d like to see all of our officers under one roof.”