Agawam Mayor Christopher Johnson explains the new police station’s upgrades to evidence storage compared to the existing station.
Reminder Publishing photo by Sarah Heinonen
AGAWAM — Although it may not look like much now, the building at 1070 Suffield St. in Agawam is well on its way to becoming a modern police station, capable of providing for the town’s public safety needs now, and in the years to come.
The Police Department moved into its current headquarters at 681 Springfield St. in Feeding Hills in the 1980s. A former elementary school that was built around World War I, the building was given a renovation that Mayor Christopher Johnson described as “more cosmetic and not structural.”
The new 18,756-square-foot station, formerly a branch of the HUB International insurance company, was purchased for $2.17 million in 2022. With the construction needed to bring the building to code for public safety uses, Johnson said the $13.62 million project is about half of what it was estimated that a newly constructed station would cost. Steps were taken to limit the cost, including aligning the design to the existing plumbing structures and maintaining much of the landscaping. The department will reuse as much of the furniture and equipment from the old station as is feasible, however the building was sold to the town with its office furniture included, said Chief Procurement Officer Jennifer Bonfiglio.
The layout of the building’s interior was intentional, Johnson said, and will “significantly improve workflow.”
The front section of the station is dedicated to handling visitors’ needs, creating a separation between the public-facing areas and the rest of the building. People will enter a lobby area, with an interview room to the left and the behavioral health office to the right. The records department will be located behind a large window, with a pass-through for documents. Police personnel will be required to have a security fob to enter points beyond those areas.
Among the upgrades over the existing police station at 681 Springfield St. in Feeding Hills, the new station will be outfitted with four dispatch stations, rather than three. All the dispatch stations are new, with three of them funded through a grant. The dispatch center includes a restroom to ensure the dispatchers are never far from their stations.
One major benefit of the new station will be the evidence room. As it stands, evidence is stored in four spaces at the Springfield Street station. The new evidence room is an expansive, climate-controlled space, with a secure passthrough. The walls were constructed after a refrigerated evidence locker was moved into the space due to the equipment’s size. Johnson said the room is “essentially impenetrable.” He emphasized that there have not been issues around evidence storage or chain of command in the past, but the new evidence room will greatly improve efficiency.
The new station will also have space for storage, an information technology room, an area for training and a kitchenette. There are several offices, including a dedicated one for the detective bureau. Johnson said that officers write reports “anywhere they can find a space” in the Springfield Street station.
Johnson said one of the offices near the locker rooms will likely be used as a “muster room,” an area where officers will receive their assignments for the shift. The lockers are state-of-the-art, with space to secure a weapon, electrical outlets to charge equipment, batteries and a ventilated area for shoes. Officers currently use repurposed school lockers.
The Police Department consists of 54 sworn officers and eight civilian staff, however, Johnson said there is “plenty of capacity to grow” to up to 70 individuals at the new station. That said, he noted the number of officers has been relatively steady for the past 30 years.
At the rear of the building, a sally port is under construction. The only change to the building’s envelope, the sally port will allow officers to pull their vehicles into an enclosed part of the building and take people in their custody straight into the booking room.
Past the booking desk, there is a holding area, a segregated cell for juveniles in custody and six cells for general prisoners, two more than at the existing station. Johnson said people do not often stay in the custody of the Agawam Police Department overnight, as the Sheriff’s Department usually collects them within a few hours, however, the cells give the department flexibility if needed.
Johnson said he expects the building to be completed by June. The original timeline for the station has been pushed back due to supply chain issues, Johnson said. Specifically, the town is waiting to receive a generator and electronic switches, without which the station cannot be occupied. However, Johnson said that with a retrofit of an existing building, there are bound to be “hiccups.”
The move to the new station will be completed in phases over a couple of months. The most intensive phase will be the transfer of evidence, due to the sensitivity of the items and the care with which they will have to be moved. Johnson said the police department is excited to move into its new-and-improved headquarters.
