The Hermiston Police Department’s station is getting a major remodel. Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston said that means the station is a construction zone and during this project the department will operate in other locations and public access will be extremely limited.
The police department is next to the Umatilla County Fire District No. 1’s Station No. 21 in the Public Safety Center on the 300 block of South First Street near downtown Hermiston. The building was built in the early 1970s and the police station even had its own jail.
“Over time we’ve to make it work for our needs as the department has grown,” Edmiston said.
But that has reached its limit. Making the space work, he said, has “really just been about Bandaids for the last 20 years.”
A new facility would be ideal, Edmiston said, but the city partnered with the fire district on the public safety building they share.
Hermiston City Manager Byron Smith explained the city applied for and received a $2.5 million state grant for a seismic retrofit to the building. Edmiston said that includes replacing the roof, which amounts to a major savings for the city.
Smith said the city also used full faith and credit bonds — which don’t require an election — to cover the cost of the project. The city council in February approved $20 in bonds for seven projects, including $11.5 million for the Public Safety Center to renovate the police station, incorporate the former municipal court space and increase space for fire district.
Smith said the construction estimate for the project is 10 months, but that could extend to a year.
Edmiston said the first phase of the remodel involved changing the former city courtroom — the city in 2022 moved the court into its new city hall — into space for keeping evidence, including a $100,000 evidence storage system that slides on tracks. The department’s records staff also relocated to the former courtroom.
Construction is about to begin for phase two — renovating the patrol and administrative areas.
“We’re clearing the rest of the building out and will be out of here Monday for sure, but probably by (Friday) evening,” Edmiston said.
The Hermiston Police Department will operate at three locations until the building is ready.
Police records staff will continue to work in the former courtroom. A couple of large containers out front act as a “tunnel” for public access to the records department.
The administration will operate at the Arc of Umatilla County building in McKenzie Park at 215 W. Orchard Ave. And patrol will work out of the Harkenrider Senior Activity Center, 255 NE Second St. Edmiston stressed those two sites to not have public access, such as a lobby.
He also said this will be challenging and said he hopes the public understands. Smith said the work is going to move the department’s building from the last century into this one.
