City adds two new sites to list of places for potential police station

Something old and something new.

It’s not a fashion suggestion for brides-to-be. Instead, it’s the latest revision to the list of possible locations for a new police station for the city of Bainbridge Island.

Bainbridge council members agreed Tuesday to add two additional sites to their short list of potential places to plop a new public safety facility.

One, the new one, is downtown: the Columbia Bank building on Winslow Way.

The other, known as the Coultas property, is on New Brooklyn Road near the Bainbridge Island Fire Department’s headquarters station and was under consideration earlier but was culled from the list.

Other sites include rebuilding the police station in its current spot on Winslow Way next to Highway 305, as well as three other properties near the highway; at 8954 Madison Ave. North, 9657 NE Yaquina Ave., and north of Vineyard Lane.

At its meeting this week, the council also gave consultants Coates Design Architects the go-ahead to further scrutinize the six sites as possible places for a combined police station and municipal court.

Still, some were skeptical about the new options.

Councilwoman Sarah Blossom said the facility needs to be near Highway 305, while the Columbia Bank building is in the heart of downtown Winslow.

It’s also the only site with a building that would require retrofitting to work as a police station, and Blossom said she would have rather kept the previously considered building at 600 Erickson Ave. on the city’s list if retrofitting was going to be pursued.

Blossom also questioned how much of the heavily wooded Vineyard Lane property could actually be developed.

“I don’t want to be responsible for developing that. It’s a very pristine, beautiful area,” she added.

Councilman Ron Peltier questioned the criteria that will be used to rate the proposed locations, and wondered aloud if they could be adjusted to consider some of the advantages of the police station’s current location.

That echoed the sentiment of some citizens Tuesday, who continued to press city officials to keep looking at saving the police station in its current location.

Doug Rauh told the council a three-story building at the station’s present spot would give public safety officials all the room they need while providing the best access to Highway 305.

And the station, he said, would stay in a crucial location — near the ferry terminal that serves more than 4.4 million passengers and 1.9 million vehicles a year — should disaster strike.

The municipal court, Rauh added, should be left in place in its leased facility in Rolling Bay as a way to stimulate economic growth there.

Bainbridge officials have been working for the past three years to build a new public safety building to replace the police department’s cramped and outdated quarters on Winslow Way. A search for a new location has been underway since a $15 million bond measure to pay for a new police and court building just north of city hall was rejected by voters in November 2015.

Council members were also told this week that consultants had “validated” the suggested size of the new police and municipal court building, which has been under question given that it may eclipse city hall in size.

The city’s advisors said the police station needs a total of 17,641 square feet of space, and an additional 4,133 square feet more will be needed if an indoor firearms shooting range is added in.

The municipal court will need 6,825 square feet of space, the consultants said, which would mean a total space of 24,466 square feet for a combined court and police station.

Creating a two-story police station, they said, would require an additional 2,4000 square feet.

The consultant team of Bainbridge-based Coats Design and McClaren, Wilson &Lawrie, Inc., of Arizona, has not yet prepared cost estimates for the new facility.

Kelvin Hughes | Property Pictures Online                                Bainbridge officials are now 
considering the Columbia Bank building on Winslow Way as the location for a new police station.

Kelvin Hughes | Property Pictures Online Bainbridge officials are now considering the Columbia Bank building on Winslow Way as the location for a new police station.