When you think of renovating spaces for new uses, renovating a former church building to become a police station probably does not come to mind.
The city of Mount Vernon was able to find a new use for the former Latter Day Saints church building on Mount Vernon Road/First Street that meets the needs of the city’s current and future police departments for years to come.
The new police department will hold an open house for the public on Sunday, May 5 from 4-6 p.m.
The city announced its purchase of the former space in late 2019. Officers were utilizing office space in the building in early March 2020.
Then, as chief Doug Shannon noted ahead of a tour of the space by Lisbon and Mount Vernon city councils, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. During the pandemic, the former LDS space became the temporary city council chambers and meeting hall for Mount Vernon, which allowed for distanced attendance of the meetings. The technology used to televise those meetings was eventually moved to the conference room at the new police station.
The former city council chambers had their own renovation in 2022. When work was finished, the city council returned to utilizing the new city hall for meeting space.
Then, renovations to the police department began, with the help of Septagon Construction.
At the central portion of those renovations is an enclosed garage and evidence rooms to keep all of those items in one location, as opposed to scattered across multiple city properties. The garage at the property can safely house all the vehicles in the police department fleet when not in use and protect them from the weather. The garage also has access from both the east and west wings of the building, so officers can easily gain access no matter which drive they come from.
Officers can also easily move from their vehicles to the rooms for interviewing suspects and victims. For those who remember, compared to the police department’s former space at Mount Vernon City Hall, the new space for officers — both full-time and reserve — is greatly expanded. The police department will no longer have to fit eight people into a tiny workspace.
City administrator Chris Nosbisch noted at the council meeting, that the renovations to the space are still more cost-effective than constructing a brand-new building with many of these amenities. It’s a space that will meet the needs of our department for decades in the future.