L’Italien brings senate president to city to build support for state funding
Lawrence may be closer than ever to finally getting a new police station.
City and state leaders are working with Northern Essex Community College to partner on a $71 million public safety complex that would include a new Lawrence police station and a regional police training facility run by the community college.
City leaders have been looking for a way to replace the existing outdated, crowded and badly deteriorated 58-year-old station on Lowell Street for decades.
Lawrence state Sen. Barbara L’Italien brought Senate President Stan Rosenberg to the city last week for a meeting at the police station with NECC President Lane Glenn, Lawrence police Chief James Fitzpatrick, Mayor Dan Rivera and state Rep. Marcos Devers.
Police Captain Scott McNamara gave the group a tour of the station and explained it doesn’t have appropriate areas for officers to train, to maintain important paperwork and evidence or even to meet with the public. The facility lacks basic necessities such as a cafeteria, shooting range, forensic laboratory or community room for officers to meet with residents, McNamara said.
“Anyone who has been inside the Lawrence police station knows how badly we need a new one,” said Sen. L’Italien, chairwoman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee of Municipalities and Regional Government. “Lawrence residents and the city’s police officers have been waiting a long a time for a new police station. Way too long actually. The city needs and deserves a new police station and I’m going to do everything I can to make it happen.”
Lawrence recently received $400,000 from the state to study the proposal for the 100,000 square-foot public safety complex.
The city and college would need major financial assistance from the state to build the facility. Sen. President Rosenberg said there’s still a lot of work to do to fine-tune the details, but that he is intrigued by the proposal.
Sen. Rosenberg said he likes the idea of the city and community college working together on the project and that he appreciated their “creativity.”
Sen. L’Italien said she plans to bring other important state leaders to the station in the coming weeks and months to build support for the project.
Despite the city’s financial challenges, Mayor Rivera said the city plans do whatever it can to make the project happen, including paying an amount it can afford.
This (public safety complex) will be great for Lawrence and the state,” Rivera said.
NECC President Glenn said the complex would be “a first of its kind” in the northeast United States.
Glenn said the police training center would provide spots for about 200 potential police recruits per year who are planning to join local, state and federal law enforcement agencies as well as private security companies,
The new facility would include a firing range and a training maze that would simulate many of the conditions police officers encounter on the street, such as a replica of a home that they could practice raiding.
The state study also estimated it would cost about $46 million to build a new city police station without the NECC training complex.
The study stressed what Lawrence officials have been saying about the Lowell Street police station for a long time – that is poses “numerous operational, legal and security risks for its occupants and the adjacent neighborhood.”
“The current 20,000-square-foot (police station) does not provide safe entries, proper intake areas, room for intelligence sharing and analysis, interview rooms and (has) undersized dispatch facilities,” the study said. “There is no ability to control access to the current building and its interior to protect visitors and workers. There is no space to properly secure evidence, control entrances to the building and effectively segregate weapons and ammunition. The current police headquarters provides no space for officers to train with handguns and practice personal defense.”
The study said the proposed joint facility would improve the city’s “public safety perception, attract economic development and add educational opportunities in Lawrence”
Northern Essex Community College has been steadily building a stronger presence in Lawrence. Last year, for example, the school opened a $27 million health and technology classroom building on Common Street.
