The Orono Police Department is slated to move out of the facility it shares with the fire department and into its own building within the next two years.
Orono officials recently bought the former bank at 56 Main St. from Cryptic House, a rental agency in Orono, to become the new police station. The building has sat vacant for more than five years.
The purchase was necessary because the current public safety facility is shared by the Orono Fire Department and Police Department. For more than two decades, the two departments have said they needed more space, Orono Town Manager Clint Deschene said. The two departments need an additional 6,000 square feet for storage and operations.
The new building will hold the police department, which opens up space for the fire department in the current facility.
Town officials had previously considered buying a different building or constructing a new facility to house the police department. Orono bought the former bank for $725,000 after asking Matt Acheson, owner of Cryptic House, if it was available.
Acheson declined to comment on the building or the sale.
Roughly $500,000 of renovations to the roof, floors and heat need to be completed before anything moves into the building. It also needs a new bathroom.
In total, approximately $1.2 million will be spent on the purchase and renovation of the former bank, which is still under the amount other buildings would’ve cost, Deschene said.
Because of high construction and design costs, Orono officials received estimates hovering around $600 or more per square foot for a new building. With 6,000 square feet needed, the town wanted to avoid the large price tag of a new building, Deschene said.
“We were toying around with a number of $2.5 million for a new police station,” he said.
No new tax dollars will go into the project because of allocated funding in previous budgets that hadn’t been used.
Both Deschene and Police Chief Daniel Merrill said securing a spot on Main Street was the most appealing part of the building.
“There were a lot of pros to that location. We were glad it was available,” Deschene said.
“That visual presence of having the police department with a sign and the cruisers parked out front of the Main Street corridor says something to the safety of our community,” Merrill said.
Orono’s police cruisers currently sit behind the public safety building and cannot be seen from Main Street.
The police department’s new Main Street location also aligns with residents wanting to keep town services close together in the downtown area, Deschene said.
Despite being the eventual home of the Orono Police Department, the building may first be used by the Orono Public Library as storage while the current library undergoes an expansion. The library would use the building for 12 to 18 months before the police department moved in if needed. It isn’t currently clear if the space will be needed or if the library will continue to use the current building, Deschene said.
The expansion will hopefully begin in early spring or summer next year, but the job hasn’t been put out to bid yet, Deschene said.