The vacant field north of Moscow, Idaho's Pape Machinery will be occupied by a new police station come 2021.
Moscow voters passed, with a 69.28% approval, a 10-year, $9.64 million general obligation bond Tuesday to fund the construction of a new Moscow Police Department facility, according to initial results released by the elections office.
The new $7.89 million facility will be located on the corner of South Main Street/U.S. Highway 95 and Southview Avenue.
The bond will also cover the cost to remodel the existing police station on East Fourth Street to accommodate other city office needs ($1.5 million) and the Paul Mann Building next to Moscow City Hall ($132,043).
Although voters showed overwhelming support for a new police station, the bond only passed by a little more than 2.5 percentage points because passage required a two-thirds supermajority. 1,723 voted in favor of the bond and 764 voted against it.
Mayor Bill Lambert told the Daily News on Tuesday night he was stoked about the election results.
"It's a good day for the citizens of Moscow," Lambert said.
The interest rate anticipated on the bond, based upon current market rates, is 2.21% per year.
The total amount to be repaid over the life of the bond, based on the anticipated interest, is $10,849,800, including $9,640,000 in principal and $1,209,800 in interest.
The estimated average annual cost to the taxpayer on the bond is $85 per $100,000 of taxable assessed value. The city has no bond debt.
Moscow Community Development Director Bill Belknap said city staff will work on the police facility's design this summer and early fall with the goal of bidding the project this winter.
Construction would then be expected to start in April or May 2020.
He said the facility will take about one year to complete, meaning construction would be finished in the spring or summer of 2021.
The new station will be larger and more efficient.
The facility will include a two-story, 16,000-square-foot police station with a 4,000-square-foot outbuilding that will house storage spaces for bicycles, motorcycles and evidence.
Plans call for the first floor of the main police facility to contain a public lobby, interview room, reception area, records center, evidence storage and labs, wellness center, locker rooms, armory, break room and various offices. The second floor will comprise of a training room, various offices, a parking enforcement center, administration center and storage area.
The development will provide 22 spaces for public parking and 74 stalls for employee parking. Covered parking will be available for patrol cars.
The city's Community Development and Engineering Division staff will relocate to the roughly 9,000-square-foot existing police station, Belknap said earlier this month.
Community Development employees are currently housed in the almost 4,000-square-foot Mann Building, and engineering workers are located in the Mann Building and in a leased office across from city hall on East Third Street.
The Information Systems Department, located at the city's Eggan Youth Center, will move to the Mann Building.
As for renovations to the existing police station, Belknap said the office layout will be reconfigured, the primary entry point will be relocated, the exterior will be restored and the roof will be replaced.
He said stabilization work will be done to address the cracking on the Mann Building's masonry block exterior, and new siding will be installed to protect the building from water intrusion. The roof, which is nearing the end of its lifespan, will be replaced. Interior work will be minimal, Belknap said.
Renovations of the existing police station is estimated to be completed by October 2021 and the Mann Building remodel is expected to be completed early in the summer of 2022, he said.
