By Hasso Hering
Albany Democrat-Herald | Posted: Monday, December 1, 2008 12:00 am
There's no funding and no timeline for construction, but Albany city officials for some time have been wondering where to build new quarters for the police and fire departments.
The Albany YMCA has proposed the city buy its property, but council members are cool to the idea.
The YMCA has been trying to sell as part of a plan to build a new Y and city recreation center on the north side of Timber-Linn Memorial Park.
City Manager Wes Hare told the council last week that the Y had offered its existing site, at Pacific Boulevard and 34th Avenue S.E., to the city for $4 million plus other considerations
The council was skeptical. Councilman Floyd Collins, for example, said the property would be of no benefit to the city. Councilors Sharon Konopa, Ralph Reid Jr., Jeff Christman and Bessie Johnson also expressed doubts.
City officials say they need to replace the police station on Jackson Street because it is too small. And they are running out of space at City Hall, having had to rent nearby space for some offices, so they're interested in finding room elsewhere for the fire administration, which has a suite of offices on the second floor of City Hall.
The subject of a new location for emergency services - police and fire - has come up periodically in the city's public safety commission, an advisory group.
Bill Coburn, a member of the committee who was elected to the city council and will take office in January, says the panel sees some value in a joint facility for fire and police. But while the exact location might not be critical for the police, it would be for the fire department because of response times.
The old Safeway property at Pacific and Calapooia Street, and the Y property, farther south on Pacific, have been mentioned, Coburn said, along with a couple of others he was not free to discuss.
He stressed that nothing was imminent but that it was a long-term goal of the city to find a site and then obtain the funding to cover the cost, likely to run into several million dollars.
The city has been saving money for a new police and/or fire building and has nearly $2 million so far.
One potential source of additional funding might be a potential settlement with SVC, the Pepsi-Co subsidiary that announced last month that its planned Gatorade plant in Albany would not be built.