Scarborough is taking the first steps toward a new complex to ease space squeeze.

There’s across-the-board agreement that the highest-priority capital need in Scarborough is for a new public safety building.

Now, the Town Council is creating a new ad hoc Public Safety Complex Building Committee, which will report back with its findings and recommendations no later than next August.

At a meeting held Wednesday, after the Current’s deadline, the council was expected to approve creation of the building committee, which would have seven members and a budget of $50,000 in order to do a thorough review of the needs and costs associated with a new public safety complex.

At a workshop this past spring, the council was presented with an updated long-range facilities plan that put a new public safety building at the top of the list of needs.

At that workshop, Town Planner Dan Bacon pegged the cost of a new combined police and fire station at between $13 million and $15 million, assuming a building size of about 43,000 square feet. The current building is 12,500 square feet, according to town records.

The primary task of the Public Safety Complex Building Committee would be to provide the council with a recommendation that includes a preferred construction site, a space-needs analysis, a preliminary project design and a projected cost, according to the resolve creating the committee.

Membership on the committee will consist of Fire Chief Mike Thurlow, Police Chief Robbie Moulton, one member of the Town Council, local construction expert and developer Rocco Risbara and three members of the public.

A new public safety building has been under discussion in town for nearly a decade, with the council approving creation of a special capital improvement account for the project back in 2007. That account now has a little more than $617,000 in it, according to the materials provided to the council before its meeting on Oct. 19.

In addition, during the past several years the town has been buying up property adjacent to Town Hall on Route 1 in Oak Hill in anticipation of building a new public safety complex there, in order to fully integrate it into the municipal campus that already exists in that location, according to what Bacon told the council this past spring.

Under the resolve creating the new Public Safety Complex Building Committee, it’s fully acknowledged that the current facility, on the other side of Route 1 from Town Hall and built in 1989, is failing.

In anticipation of a new complex, the town has deferred maintenance and also not spent any money on expanding the facility, which houses both the central fire station and the police department.

Moulton told the Current this week that the issues the public safety building is experiencing have only gotten worse in the past nearly 10 years. Those issues include severe overcrowding, water infiltration and worn-out systems, including those for heating and cooling.

Both Moulton and Thurlow said they’re thrilled to finally be moving forward toward getting a new facility, even though both also acknowledged it could be several years before ground is even broken.

In addition to all the initial planning that must be done, public approval of the project is also required. Prior to this week’s council meeting, Bill Donovan, the council chairman, said that the “very earliest” such a vote could be held would be November 2017.

Donovan, who is running for re-election next month, also said that although “the most likely location” for a new public safety complex would be next to Town Hall, the building committee would have “full authority to see if any other sites might be preferable.”

He said that while the committee would be asked to provide a “thorough evaluation” of the proposed new public safety complex, it likely would not be asked to answer the additional question of what do with the current site.

Donovan called that piece of property “a valuable commercial site” and said the town’s overall strategy would depend on all of the options available.

He said one of the principal factors supporting construction of a new public safety complex is “significant overcrowding. (The departments) really need additional space to operate properly.”

Moulton and Thurlow could not agree more.

“I’m tickled to death,” Thurlow said. “It’s time to start moving.”

He added that creation of the building committee is a key “preliminary step in the right direction.”

“I’m looking forward to getting this started,” Moulton concurred. “We’ve been struggling with the size of this facility for years and things are just stuffed here, there and everywhere. There truly is a need.”

Moulton also said that both the police and fire departments have been forced to create a number of new positions that were not needed when the public safety facility was built 27 years ago.

While he said the building “looks OK from the outside” there are a number of interior maintenance issues. For example, he pointed to the rigging of a water drainage pipe inside his office to catch rain and melting snow from the roof.

Thurlow said that on his side of the building, things are much the same.

“We’re right on top of each other. We’ve really outgrown” the current building, he said this week.

Basically, Thurlow said, “We’ve just been trying to keep the ship afloat until a decision is made” on a new facility.

Both Moulton and Thurlow said they would be more than happy to give residents a tour. When the Current did a quick walk-through this week, Moulton pointed out all the items being stored in hallways and any other available nook, as well as the crowded working conditions.

For its Operation HOPE project, for example, which connects those addicted to opioids with recovery and treatment resources, the intake interviews must be conducted in the public lobby, Moulton said, because there’s simply no other place to do it.

He also pointed out a number of other inventive uses of space, including creation of a storage cubby under the main stairwell, and file cabinets in the fire station that are half in a hallway and half into an adjoining office space.

Overall, Moulton said, “there are lots of things where they shouldn’t be,” from photocopiers in the hallways, to the fingerprinting station in the stairwell, to the breathalyzer in the lunch room.

“We keep moving things from here to there, but at some point the space is all used up,” he said.

Scarborough Police Chief Robbie Moulton points out the interior water drainage pipe that’s been installed in his office to catch leakage from the roof.

Signs of wear and tear are a common sight in Scarborough’s 27-year-old public safety building.

The storage needs are so great at Scarborough’s public safety building that these filing cabinets at Central Fire Station are built half in the hallway and half into an adjoining office.

Scarborough Police Chief Robbie Moulton said his department is forced to store things “here, there and everywhere.”

With no place to put people, two working stations have been installed in the noisy, windowless server room at the Scarborough police station, said Police Chief Robbie Moulton.

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