Sudbury downtown police station 'bursting at the seams'

For more than two decades the Greater Sudbury Police Service has occupied the six story building on the corner of Brady and Minto Streets, downtown.

The complex was originally built in the 1970s for office space, but officials with the police service say the 70,000 square foot, multi-level building is no longer adequate for police needs, and that is impacting police work.

"We're very crowded. I would just sort of call it bursting at the seams in a number of areas," said chief administrative officer Sharon Baiden.

The municipal police service operates out of two sites in Greater Sudbury: the Lionel E. Lalonde Centre in Azilda, and the downtown headquarters at 190 Brady St.

The downtown building is owned and operated by the city. It's attached to Sudbury city hall, known as Tom Davies Square.

"We've got people working in very very small spaces, although we have been trying to address some of the short space that we find ourselves with through a whole array of furniture design," Baiden said.

Space not designed for police needs

There are offices originally designed for one or two people being shared by up to six employees.

The multiple levels also make it difficult for various departments to share information.

"Just the ineffectiveness of traveling from floor to floor, and information exchange, maintaining the confidentiality for victims, for accused persons," Baiden said.

She added that offices have been modified or retrofitted to accommodate various police departments, functions and equipment.

For example, the space on the sixth floor designated for the forensics unit needs special features to process evidence from investigations.

"This is just an office that has been designed to support that function, but it has not been actually contemplated and designed from a structural perspective," Baiden said.

Inefficiencies adding up

"There's a number of inefficiencies within our structure, that our organization is frustrated with," said Sudbury police chief Paul Pedersen.

When they begin their daily shifts, police officers are briefed on one floor, then they must gather their weapons and equipment on another floor. The change rooms and lockers are located on a different floor.

According to Pedersen, the inadequate workspace has a definite impact on the morale of police officers and other civilians who work at the Brady Street site.

"They're having to move up and down, sometimes several times up and down floors, just to go out on the road," he said.

However, for the police chief the biggest concern connected to the building is safety.

Pedersen says officers must move accused persons between floors — from jail cells to interview rooms — using the same elevators as other visitors to the police station, including victims, witnesses or community members.

"That overlap between those two groups I find very concerning, and of course, we then have to provide the security in the form of armed police officers," he said.

​The only public meeting space at the police station is the fifth floor board room, which means everyone attending must be escorted up.

"We have no way of moving people through the building other than from the common elevator," Baiden said

"I don't say it's a public elevator, but public do come in through that area, always under escort though, with a police staff member," she added.

The only part of the building fully accessible by the public — without an escort — is the first floor lobby, where Sudbury Police has its customer service area.

Renovating not an option

Although at one time there was discussion about renovating the building, Baiden says that isn't an option anymore.

"This building is designed for office use and there are so many special purpose functions [of the police service] that renovating is just continually sort of backwards retrofitting a building that's not suitable for the police business," she said.

Moving the downtown headquarters to the other police location in Azilda is also not an option.

"There isn't the space in the existing campus given that we share that facility with our other emergency responders, and if we were going to enter into a capital construction project and put that type of investment, it wouldn't make sense for us to have a huge development out there," Baiden said.

A new facility would be designed for current policing needs and all the special functions of various police departments and units.

"You think of everything that's changed from the 1990s when we first occupied this building until now," Pedersen said, referring to the changing face of policing over the years.

New building to cost up to $60M

Baiden says the police service is setting aside reserve money toward a new building.

"In the 2019 budget we have $900,000 that has been earmarked and we continue to put that in a capital financing reserve fund that ultimately would go towards financing a debt."

She estimates the project would cost between $55 to $60 million.

"Of course with every year that goes by, construction and consumable items are going up all the time."

Construction of a new specially-designed police building must be a project approved by Sudbury city council.