LAKE FOREST, IL — The Lake Forest City Council unanimously approved the $3.5 million purchase of an office building at 1925 Field Court to be renovated into a new police station.
The three-story, 98,304-square-foot building was built in 2008 in the Conway Park commercial development. It includes an underground garage with 66 parking spaces and is located near the city’s municipal services facility in northwest Lake Forest.
City officials plan to pay somewhere between $24 million and $29 million on retrofitting the building to make it suitable to serve as a police station. Construction of a brand new building could set the city back between $41 and $52 million.
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Interim Police Chief Michael Lange said the current public safety building at 255 W. Deerpath Road, which is shared by the Lake Forest police and fire departments, has provided a challenge for the department amid a changing law enforcement landscape.
“Our current police department was built in the 1960s and not really built for any sort of significant expansion. The last time we’ve done any major renovations to the police department would have been back in the mid-1990s, so it’s been quite some time. The current building is simply not adequate for our current needs as well as future needs,” Lange said.
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Over the past decade, Lang said, the department’s personnel, training mandates and equipment needed has become increasingly diverse. The current building, he said, is lacking in training space, evidence storage and office space for staff.
“We have simply maximized every single inch of our police department to the best of our abilities, and we are outgrowing it significantly,” Lange said Tuesday during a presentation to the City Council. “We believe a new facility is needed to continue to maintain those high levels of service that I know everybody here appreciates.”
For instance, the only space for an office for the department’s social worker is in the public safety building’s lobby, and there’s no room to fit an ambulance into the police sally port so people in custody have to be walked outside if they need to be taken to a hospital.
“Also, when we’re having offenders leave our police station, the only way they can leave is through the front lobby, which is very small,” Lange said. “Often, they have interactions with residents, and we’d like to minimize that as much as we possibly can.”
Mayor Randy Tack said in a statement at the opening of Tuesday’s meeting that city staff have been working on this deal for six months so far, assessing options, different sites, alternative designs and modeling the costs.
“The process has at its core concern for expense and impact on taxpayers, consistent with the council’s fiduciary responsibility to our citizens,” Tack said.
“The process began with the identification of a unique opportunity to acquire a $35 million structure for approximately $3.5 million,” he said. “The building purchase to be considered tonight includes substantial intrinsic assets, such as underground parking, that would be difficult to reproduce in alternative existing structures or new construction, if a site for such were indeed available.”
In April, the City Council approved the contract purchase of the building, pending a 90-day due diligence process.
During that period, city officials arranged for various assessments and reports to determine the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the plan, such as in-depth space needs analysis by FGM Architects and a facility condition assessment by The Concord Group.
Money to purchase of the building will come from the city’s capital fund reserves, according to city staff. The City Council has yet to determine how to pay for the construction work.
According to a summary of a needs analysis presented to the council, the department “needs to have” at least 49,400 square feet, though it would be “nice to have” about 59,700 square feet, allowing room for an expanded firing range, fleet garage, evidence storage, 60-person multipurpose room and more.
The cost of renovations to create a “need to have” facility is estimated at between $24.5 and $25.7 million, while a “nice to have” one would set the city back between $27.5 and $28.8 million.
Though the new building includes more space than is needed for a police station, it offers room for future expansion or opportunities to lease it out to other agencies. The potential relocation will also free up space for the Lake Forest Fire Department in the existing public safety.
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City Manager Jason Wicha said councilmember have been presented with a unique financial opportunity. Disruptions in the commercial real estate market that followed the coronavirus pandemic and the end of years of historically low interest rates have made it a buyer’s market for office buildings.
“We know, based on the cyclical nature of the office market, and based on past purchases, that the building the City Council has identified [1925 Field Court] would not have been financially viable for us five years ago,” Wicha said.
“Certainly, as we think about the cyclical nature of the market, none of us have a crystal ball,” he said, “but there is a high likelihood that this opportunity wouldn’t be available three to five years from now either.”
Later this summer, staff intend to issue a request for proposals from design firms, with design expected to be complete and construction ready to be bid out as early as summer 2025.
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