THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Police Services Board continues to support the construction of a new police headquarters.
The board received a presentation on Tuesday from Form Architects on the facility needs assessment for the police headquarters.
The assessment was originally presented in 2020, but given the board now consists of entirely new members, the information was shared again.
Board administrator Malcolm Mercer, who is the sole voting member of the board, passed a resolution with consensus from the board to reaffirm support for the option of constructing a new facility in a new location.
The estimated costs of a new facility in 2020 was approximately $56 million. Senior police leadership had been calling for a new facility for several years, with a report in March 2020 finding it would be more cost-effective to construct a new facility rather than renovate the existing headquarters on Balmoral Street.
The report found that it would cost approximately $10 million to renovate the existing facility just to meet the Ontario Building Code requirements.
The Police Services Board originally voted to move forward with the new $56 million facility in April 2021. City council granted $2.4 million in February 2022 to advance the work on the project a week after the board withdrew its request for full funding in the wake of investigations into the senior leadership.
The presentation on Tuesday repeated that a new facility would be the most cost-effective option and would meet the growing infrastructure needs of the police service.
