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By David Walsh

By LANDON WOODROOF

The size, design and budget of a proposed new Brentwood Police Department headquarters are all starting to come into view thanks to a recent study conducted for the city.

The City Commission approved a $297,800 contract with the architect Workshop (then known as kennon | calhoun WORKSHOP) back in October for an expanded space needs assessment, site evaluation, schematic design and estimation of costs related to a new police headquarters. The architect WORKSHOP designed the Franklin Police Department and the Murfreesboro Police Department, among others.

The results of this work, described in city documents as Phase I architectural services, were presented to city commissioners at an informational session on March 8 by representatives of the architect WORKSHOP as well as by representatives from two other companies that assisted in the study: Chicago-based architectural firm McClaren, Wilson & Lawrie, Inc., which specializes in public safety buildings, and engineering firm Ragan-Smith Associates.

Not all commissioners were able to attend that meeting, so the study report was presented again to city commissioners, this time by city staff, at a March 22 briefing.

James Kennon, of the architect WORKSHOP, gave an idea of the scope of the study at the March 8 meeting.

“If we thought about this process as a family trying to buy a car and you’re the family,” he told staff and commissioners, “you’ve decided you need to buy a car…you’ve thought through what your family needs for that car, but you haven’t really started determining the color of the car, the actual model of the car. But you’ve got it in your head, ‘I need a 4-door sedan with all-wheel drive.’”

Dean Roberts, senior principal at McLaren, Wilson & Lawrie, explained the first step that the team took as a part of this Phase I work.

They sent questionnaires to all staff in the police department in an attempt to find out what the department’s biggest needs were.

“We got 213 completed surveys back,” Roberts said. “We asked for a lot of information, and they responded.” 

Counting those who work in dispatch, the department has 78 employees, Brentwood Police Department Chief Jeff Hughes said. Some people with multiple duties filled out more than one questionnaire.

This stage was followed by an analysis of the space currently used by the police department in City Hall.

Kennon established that the department currently utilizes about 26,000 square feet of space.

“That’s really important because that’s our baseline,” Roberts said.

The team then looked at the specific challenges that the City Hall building presents to the police department.

Chief Hughes has been vocal about those challenges.

“It’s the basic stuff,” he said on March 22. “It’s the security, it’s the location, it’s the fact that we’re out of space and need more space.”

On the matter of security, just to give one example, the back parking lot of the building where many police cars are parked is not secured.

As far as location is concerned, Hughes has pointed out that City Hall is located near the city’s northern boundary in a Maryland Farms, an area that gets clogged with traffic at peak times. The new location on Heritage Way would put the headquarters closer to the geographical center of the city. This would give officers quicker access to major thoroughfares like Interstate 65, Concord Road and Wilson Pike.

The study recognized many of these shortcomings and determined certain “critical success factors” that any new headquarters should meet. These included ensuring a safe and secure facility, efficient and effective facility design, a professional environment and civic architecture.

That last one gets to the question of appearance. Although this particular study did not go into detail about appearance, Roberts said that it was important for the building to be distinctive and distinguished.

“A couple of generations ago the police facility, city hall, the court building were civic pieces of architecture,” he said. “We think that’s the direction we’re seeing the trend go, and we want to make this a building the residents will be proud of.”

The study team determined that a new Brentwood police headquarters would need to be 53,800 square feet to fit the department’s current needs as well as its projected needs 25 years from now. That is about half the size of the Franklin Police Department headquarters, Chief Hughes said.

The study team also concluded that the total cost of the facility would be in the $23 million range.

“Did anybody’s heart stop?” Chief Hughes joked when that number was revealed.

City Manager Kirk Bednar said that that number included some optional costs, including a firing range and a full relocation of the communications staff.

Chief Hughes advocated for the firing range, saying that Brentwood police currently train at a commercial range in Nashville that is booked up every day of the year.

“We feel like it’s not only great, but that it’s a necessity going forward,” Hughes said on March 22.

City Commissioner Ken Travis agreed, saying he thought the department needed the firing range.

As far as design is concerned, no firm conclusions have been made. However, a two-story, rectangular building seemed to garner the most support.

“What it looks like is up to you,” Bednar told the city commissioners.

At the March 8 meeting at the conclusion of the consultants’ presentation, Bednar gave his thoughts on the study and where it left the city.

“The purpose of this study was to get us an incredible amount of good information for us to make an informed decision about do we go or don’t we go” on with the construction of a new headquarters, he said.

Bednar said he had considered a number of different options to solve the police department’s problems in a less expensive way. This included buying and renovating an existing building, but he decided those did not make much sense.

“I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that a new facility is I think something we’ve got to do,” he said.

Bednar also underscored the fact that a new police headquarters would be helpful to staff in other departments at City Hall as well.

“I joke but it’s not really a joke; if we hired today someone that needed to have a desk space in any department in this building we truly don’t really have a place to put someone,” he said. “So longterm it solves not just the police department’s space needs, it solves everybody else’s.”

Bednar said the next step would be to set aside funding for the project in the city’s Capital Improvements Program, which identifies the city’s top capital-related budget priorities for a six-year period. A city workshop looking at that CIP will be held on Tuesday, April 3.

“I’m comfortable getting to a $20 million dollar number now” in the CIP, Bednar said.

Around the start of the next fiscal year on July 1, Bednar said the city could initiate construction design and retain a construction management firm for the project. The project could then go to bid in spring 2019 and hopefully be completed early in 2021.

“This is Brentwood and we’re good at planing and…this isn’t anything we rushed into,” Travis said. “This is a well thought out plan. I think this is what we’re good at.”