Design for $27 Million Justice Center Plans for Future Growth

Plans for O'Fallon's proposed new Justice Center will depend a lot on the site that is chosen, but police architect James Estes says that the plans also need to consider the future growth of one of Missouri's fastest growing cities.

Wilson Estes Police Architects specialize in designing facilities for law enforcement. "We plan these facilities around standards for the building type," Estes told the City Council at last week's work session.

The design firm gathered information about the O'Fallon Police Department and municipal court during onsite sessions in April. 

The first thing they did was to evaluate the existing facility as a police building. The deficiencies they noted in the existing facility included:

• Privacy and confidentiality considerations. Separate, secure rooms to bring witness, victims and detainees. 
• Parking constraints. Police and public parking need to be separated.
• Current facility is not expandable as needs change over time.
• Accessibility. Estes noted that getting to the facility from Main Street didn't affect response time. "It's just normal coming and going," he said.
• Lack of storage
• Technical infrastructure, such as power requirements is insufficient.
• Room for meetings, briefings and multi-use training is lacking.
• The facility needs a sally port, an access point to bring detainees in and out of the facility safety, with nothing in it that could be used as a weapon.

Estes pointed out a picture of prisoners being led through a hallway right past the chief's office. “Everything becomes dysfunctional," he said.

Estes also said that the municipal court needed a bulletproof dais, with an escape route to a safety area.

“How much is this thing going to cost?" Estes said. "There is no way to sugar coat it—$27 million."

Other costs that will add to the total are the purchase of a site, the need for a radio tower and costs to finance.

Estes said that the design was driven by a projected population of 120,000 by 2038 and the increased personnel needs. "Personnel drives square footage," he said. "We want to see the facility designed accordingly."

Estes offered some alternate designs, depending on the building's footprint—whether it would be one or two stories—and if the parking would be ground level or in a parking garage.

The plan for a 10-acre site, Estes said, would allow the facility to be more spread out, with room for future expansion and green space and a possible animal shelter.

"It brings more dignity to public buildings," he said.

A "high density" option, that would only take about 3.5 acres, would have "a lot of negatives," Estes said, and added that his company would not recommend that option.

Adjustments to the $27 million plan included:

• Eliminating the parking garage at a savings of $3.8 million
• Adding covered parking, which would add $371,000
• Adding an outbuilding, which would add $281,000
• Adding an animal shelter, which would add $2.2 million

The next steps in the evaluation, Estes said, were figuring operations costs, performing a site evaluation, analyzing the possibility of changing the current city hall to police-only use, project management and funding.