Township police space discussion continues

By Dana Casadei


James Gallagher, Bloomfield Township Police Chief, was back before the board of trustees at the Monday, April 13, meeting to further discuss the police department’s space needs.


The township had paid for a full space needs analysis from RedStone. Gallagher focused on more specific recommendations for the future police department and highlights from an earlier space needs analysis. The space needs analysis was paid for through the ARPA funds Bloomfield Township received.


The issue of police department space needs was last before the township board on March 23.


At the March meeting the police chief reminded the board that the police department is operating at about 22,00-square-feet across two buildings. The square footage includes not just office space, but hallways and stairways as well. Gallagher said then that they have converted every conference room they could into another useful space, and in some cases, conference rooms that were once just for the department are now shared with other departments.

There’s also no soft interview rooms or room for two additional cubicles to be added for traffic officers.


Over the last year they’ve had to make some reactive changes instead of more planned growth, such as eliminating the supervisor workplace for dispatch expansion, the traffic unit was displaced by command functions, their conference room was converted to operational use, the patrol workshop was converted into a locker room with no bathrooms, and their administrative space was reduced, the chief said.  


When RedStone originally did the space needs analysis they were not permitted by the township to even consider creating an entirely new standalone building on the campus, a cause of much frustration. They noted in their space needs analysis that there wasn’t really an option for a vertical upgrade to the current township hall building where the police department is located, which would have solved some of the space issues. Not only would that sort of renovation have been incredibly costly, but it didn’t seem the building, which was originally built in 1938, would survive the structural changes. 


Since the space needs analysis was done things have changed within the township, and their proposed idea for building a separate and new standalone building for the police department is now one that can become a reality and one that was fully supported by multiple board members.


“We have space on this campus to do it,” said township clerk Martin Brook. “I’d like to focus on something new and provide the police with the resources they need and have the best policing for the next 100 years.”


“If you look at the original plan, it was very contained,” said supervisor Mike McCready. “And now we’re looking at the whole campus to figure out where we can put a new building.”


The proposed layout Gallagher presented from RedStone included dedicated training rooms, defensive tactic rooms, simulator rooms, different holding areas, and an actual community room. Updates in that plan would also help with the department’s current technology and operations gaps. 


There’s wiring bottlenecking which leaves no more room to run more wires for dispatch, being in two buildings brings limits to their ability to train effectively, and the location of their firing range – where they do shotgun and rifle training – making it near impossible for the department of public works to work when a training is happening. The range can only be used during the day if it’s for handgun training.


There are also vital 911 vulnerabilities. Critical 911 equipment is housed in the penthouse, an area that is not designed for the environmental controls required by modern technology. According to the chief, the building has fire alarms but no fire sprinklers, and has limited ADA accessibility. 


These limitations are not only affecting the current police department, but future recruits and potential partnerships as well, Gallagher said.

“This is what drew us to this issue about a year ago. We had an agency reach out to us with an ask if we could provide dispatch services to them and we weren’t able to provide that,” Gallagher said. 

While a project such as this would take years to complete, Gallagher encouraged that steps start being taken sooner rather than later for a multitude of reasons, one of the largest being cost. 

He said if they had done this years ago when it was originally discussed it probably would have saved the township millions of dollars. 

“This building has been very well maintained but has hit its end of life for the police department,” Gallagher said. 

According to the space needs assessment, a police department of Bloomfield Township’s size should operate across 58,000-60,000 square feet to be the most efficient, including hallways and stairwells. They are currently operating at around 30,000-square-feet across two buildings.

Gallagher will be back before the board in two weeks at their next meeting on Monday, April 27, to discuss this further. Next steps include having more concrete ideas and hard data for that meeting, officials said.