Starting May 22, city officials say problem calls relating to the new multi-million dollar police station will be confined to actual emergency calls to the department.

After much discussion and an extra $1.5 million in costs, due primarily to  the discovery of a landfill on the site, which led to a city lawsuit against the architectural firm designing the station, city officials said the 3 to 11 p.m. shift for the police department on the 22nd will be the first full one where the new station will be open. Officials say the opening is contingent upon the 9-1-1 system being installed by the phone company and fully operational.

“We’ve got to make sure that system is up and running before the move is complete,” said Police Chief David Wright. “The phone company tells us that they will have the system switched over to the that building and up and running properly in time for the 3 p.m. shift. It wouldn’t be good to have all of us be at the new station and not have the 9-1-1 operating properly.”

Officials had originally had a construction bid of $5.7 million for the new station located on Wolf Road across from the fire station. However remediation and related costs of dealing with the landfill issue have added an additional $1.5 million in costs to date. Right now, city officials say the tab for the station stands at $7,539,854.89. Officials said the $1.5 million will be added into the lawsuit city officials have filed against Brandstetter Carroll Zofcin, Inc. The suit is currently pending in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

Despite the extra costs and the lawsuit, Mayor Debbie Sutherland said she’s pleased with the new station.

“Obviously I can’t say much about the lawsuit since we’re still in litigation, but we are very pleased with the police station,” Sutherland said. “It’s a state-of -the-art facility which will provide us with a number of benefits.”

Sutherland said the new station solves several problems the department faces in its current location at city hall.

“We had been in violation for a number of years of state statutes with the bureau of detention about facilities for prisoners in terms of male and female prisoners, how and where they were housed, what was available for them and other statutes,” Sutherland said. “They let us get away with it to a certain degree because they knew we were trying to address the problem. This new station will provide more than adequate facilities in that and other areas.”

If  the city had gone with a plan for an addition to City Hall, the results wouldn’t have been as good, she said.

“If we had done that $3 million addition to City Hall, it still wouldn’t have addressed all our needs,” Sutherland said.

She and Wright both indicated the police firing range at the station will also take care of other problems.

“A number of the other firing ranges we’ve had to go to have been closed down by the EPA for lead violations. So we had limited options in a lot of ways, but we still had to have our officers qualified on the range for the jobs,” Sutherland said.

Having its own range will also save the department time and money, Wright said.

“We won’t have to find a way to get the entire department over to some other place and have them qualify,” Wright said. “That will cut out the overtime problem because they can do it on our range when they’re available here. That’s a lot of money we’ll save through the years. And we don’t have to worry about them having to get there.”

All the facilities will be an upgrade, Wright said.

“The current station facilities were built in 1961, and that’s just not good for a modern police station,” Wright said. “This brings us up to speed with modern police needs and requirements.”

Council members also are happy.

“I’d encourage people to go and take a look at it in July when we plan to have an open house,” said Ward 1 Councilman Donald Zimmerman. “It’s something the entire city can be proud of. People can also appreciate the public facilities in it.”

Ward 3 Councilman Scott Pohlkamp said moving the police department out of City Hall will mean extra room for the city.

“We have some other city employees scattered around the city,” Pohlkamp said. “Perhaps we can get some of them to City Hall.”