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City Council Tuesday awarded contracts totaling $2.2 million for construction of an addition to the police station.
The addition will give the Altoona Police Department more room to store evidence and more room to process it according to modern standards, said Police Chief Joe Merrill.
The current station is more than 20 years old, and the evidence room, which doubles for found property, is "maxed out," Merrill said.
The amount of evidence that needs to be stored increases year-by-year, because the department must retain more than it can legally dispose of or release to its owners, he said.
The department needs to keep homicide evidence virtually forever, so it's available for appeals and other matters, he said.
As the years go by, police need also to retain more kinds of evidence, including cellphones, DVDs and video recordings, in keeping with judges' expectations, Merrill said.
That sort of evidence also requires processing of a kind that wasn't necessary in prior years, he said.
The new evidence space will help the department keep things organized and cataloged, so it's easily accessible, while ensuring that evidence that needs refrigerated or frozen is kept that way, Merrill said.
The evidence-related operations will occupy the addition's entire first floor.
The addition's second floor will include offices that will allow for better forensic analysis of computer and cellphone evidence, plus a space for the K9 officers -- essentially a kennel with rooms for handlers to store equipment like leashes and vests, Merrill said.
The K9 space will be easily washable, he added.
Creation of the new space for storing and handling evidence will allow the department to use the existing evidence and found-property room for found property exclusively.
The city is fortunate to have the lot adjacent to the station for expansion, Merrill said, otherwise, the department would have needed to find off-site space for evidence storage and processing -- or else would have needed to relocate the entire station.
The coming expansion of the existing facility is far preferable to either of those options, he said.
Work will begin near the end of this year and should finish near the end of next year, he added.
The city is using money from its $39.6 million American Rescue Plan allocation to pay for the project.
The general construction contract was awarded to Ventura Construction Services, Altoona, $1.5 million; plumbing, Montgomery Brothers Plumbing & Heating, Altoona, $115,000; electrical, Stelco, Altoona, $199,000; and HVAC, Klesius & Sheedy, Altoona, $306,000.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.