The renovations to the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Police Department conducted by Septagon Construction have been completed. The final contract price of the renovations was roughly $1.194 million, and the final retainage will be paid on the project in May.
We’ve been very pleased with Septagon’s work on this project,” said city administrator Chris Nosbisch. “With all the renovations and equipment for the facility, we’re probably looking at a sticker price of $1.8 million for this remodel.”
That remodel price, however, is still far cheaper than if the city were to have built a building on its own with many of the amenities the building now houses.
Mount Vernon-Lisbon police chief Doug Shannon provided a tour of the space to members of the Lisbon and Mount Vernon City Councils on April 15 ahead of the Mount Vernon City Council meeting.
“This renovation has been quite the process,” Shannon said. “It cost a little more than we expected.”
The tour started at the public entrance to the police department, where a lobby space is available. During business hours, Tasha Whitman helps direct the public with law enforcement officers. If she is not available, a phone in the main lobby rings to the phones of officers in the department or over to dispatch in Linn County to page someone to meet with the individual.
One of the spaces located on the east end of the building is an area for collecting fingerprints and several individual interview rooms for officers. Shannon noted all the spaces, including interview rooms, are under video cameras for officers and the public’s sake. There is an additional softer interview room for talking with victims of crimes, with couches and more comfortable seating.
Further to the building’s east side is a remodeled training and conference room. The room has seating for 35 people with tables and chairs or 50 people if only seating with chairs.
Toward the center of the building is now an interior garage, which houses all the vehicles for the MVLPD. The building has garage access from both the east and west sides of the building. The garage connects doors with each of the different interview rooms, so officers can easily move from apprehending to those interview rooms.
The enclosed garage also has CO2 sensors, and if those levels get too high, a ventilation system kicks in to clear the area of carbon monoxide and insert oxygen.
The garage also houses a pressure washer to easily clean cars and a bath for Monster, the K-9 officer.
The evidence processing room and lockers are also connected to the garage, so evidence collected during an investigation can easily be checked in when an officer returns to station.
As part of the shift from their old location to the new location, Shannon said that there was some sorting and cleaning of evidence for items more than 30 years old that happened.
In the upstairs, there’s more storage space as well as an area for jiujitsu and defensive training that can easily have pads placed on the floors to be used.
Near the locker rooms for men and women officers is a laundry room on site.
“That’s really handy for officers that if they respond to a particularly bad scene where their uniform may be dirty, they can easily change out and into a spare and clean the uniform here on site, and not take home to do that,” Shannon said.
The whole facility has a back-up generator as well, something that came in handy in the past week as contractors were finishing up work and power disruptions from Alliant Energy hit.
Outside are also a bank of solar panels installed by Red Lion.
The department houses the eight full time officers, three part time officers and five reserve officers for the police department, with office space for all members on service in the department.
Shannon said that it’s been roughly four years since the department officially moved into the former LDS church as their offices, officially moving into the space just two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic officially hit, and roughly a year and a half of the remodeled spaces.
The building will be open for public tours May 5 during Chalk the Walk weekend.
Police department renovations completed
Nathan Countryman, Editor
April 25, 2024
About the Contributor
Nathan Countryman, Editor
Nathan Countryman is the Editor of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.