COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — North Idaho just keeps on growing and so does the Coeur d’Alene Police Department.
To help, the Coeur d’Alene City Council approved $40,000 at Tuesday night’s council meeting to enter a contract with CORE West for pre-construction services as part of the $4.5 million dollar plan to expand the police department’s headquarters.
Those services include preparing the project’s construction schedule and cost estimates and giving advice on the proposed site’s use and improvements.
City documents state the city council already approved the money for the remodeling and expansion of the department’s headquarters with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
According to Public Information Officer Sgt. Jared Reneau, the expansion of the police department is necessary because they’ve run out of room in their current building, which was finished in 1999, and had to get creative.
He recalled how an area that at one time was a small gym later became an office space for some of the police IT employees.
“They kind of outgrew that and so it’s now where some our patrol supervisors have an office,” he said.
Other quick fixes have been shuffling multiple people into offices and turning closets into areas to go through digital evidence.
Currently Coeur d’Alene PD’s authorized to have 97 sworn officers. As the city continues growing, however, Reneau expects they’ll need to grow as well with more officers a possibility in the future.
He added it’s exciting to be thinking about expansion because he expects when they have the added the space, it’ll translate to their work outside the police station.
“When we don’t have to worry about some of the things here, we’re not juggling some of the challenges within the building itself. We’re able to be out and be more engaging with the community,” he said.
With the go ahead from city council, one of the next steps will be find a design firm to partner up with CORE West.
This isn’t the only project CORE West is involved in. They’re also building the $44 million Veterans’ Home in Post Falls.
At this time it’s unknown when work on the expansion will begin.
DOWNLOAD THE KREM SMARTPHONE APP
DOWNLOAD FOR IPHONE HERE | DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID HERE
HOW TO ADD THE KREM+ APP TO YOUR STREAMING DEVICE
ROKU: add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching for KREM in the Channel Store.
Fire TV: search for "KREM" to find the free app to add to your account. Another option for Fire TV is to have the app delivered directly to your Fire TV through Amazon.
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email webspokane@krem.com.