Athens City Council picks site for proposed police station
Early Voting begins Monday
(From City of Athens Facebook Page)
The new police station will be in a familiar location if approved by voters in the upcoming election.
Monday night, the City Council decided to keep the proposed police station on North Pinkerton Street.
Council members had been considering two locations for the proposed facility:
North Pinkerton Street, on land owned by the City next to the current police station, or
U.S. Highway 175, on land owned by Henderson County between the City's Development Service Center and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) building.
Finances were an important reason for the decision. Projections showed it would cost more to build on Highway 175, even though either location could have been developed for the budget.
The proposed police station will be nearly 17,000-square-foot and more than twice the size of the current facility. It will serve the department's needs for many years.
Some of the highlights of the proposed plan include computer-controlled evidence lockers, negative pressure evidence rooms for drugs and weapons, and a dispatch area designed for 21st-century digital equipment. In addition, there will be condensed shelving for records, dedicated interview rooms, and a training area that can double as an Emergency Operations Center.
The Athens Police Department has been in the current facility, which was designed as a multipurpose building, since 1978.
The City of Athens will hold a $5.5 million bond election on Tuesday, Nov. 2, for the purpose of building a police station. The project will not require a tax rate increase.
Early voting will run from Monday, Oct. 18, to Friday, Oct. 29.
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