"It is the worst maintained publicly owned building in the borough," said Councilman John Genovesi, who brought up the possibility of renovations at the mayor and council's March 25 meeting. "We're talking about replacing bare necessities to keep the building functioning."

The building housed the Department of Public Works up until 1981 when it was reformatted to house the police department. It has had some improvements since then, according to Acting Chief Captain George Egbert, but only minor things such as fresh paint and a few new desks.

Genovesi and borough engineer Berge Tombalakian of the firm Boswell McClave did a walk-through of the facilities with Egbert to see what needed improvement.

Several of the planned changes involve making the building more handicap accessible. The front lobby's two bathrooms could be converted into one unisex bathroom in order to create extra space. Egbert said he'd like to see the front desk made two-tiered, so that a lower window would be available for someone who approaches in a wheelchair.

The building's prisoner cells would be updated from their current metal bars to solid doors, an improvement that Egbert said is recommended by the county's Department of Corrections. The current bars can pose a potential hazard for both prisoners and for officers, according to Egbert, since a prisoner could use the bars as a support to strangle themselves or could reach through to grab an officer.

The building's back stairwell is corroded from flooding and essentially unusable for anything other than an emergency exit, according to Egbert. Fixing the flooding problem would allow officers to use the back stairwell to bring in juvenile offenders. Juveniles are currently brought in through the front entrance, something that most departments try to avoid in order to keep youths from interacting with adult criminals who may be on the premises and to help maintain their confidentiality from any other adults who may be in the station.

The officers' locker rooms on the lower level would be renovated because of past flood damage. Egbert said he hopes to get larger lockers than can better accommodate the significant amounts of equipment that need to be stored. The building's floors would also be replaced, since they are cracked in many places and are as old as the building itself.

Better ventilation and a new humidifier would be acquired for the department's arsenal vault in order to better maintain the condition of the department's weapons and ammunition. Storage in general is an issue, according to Egbert. Boxes of documents are currently kept in a number of places throughout the building. An extra wall would also be added in the downstairs meeting room to separate the storage space from the rest of the area.

While it's too early for an exact figure to be attached to the project, Genovesi said he would want it to have an upper limit of no more than $200,000 to be budgeted over the course of five years. No bids are yet ready to be filed. Tombalakian is currently seeking quotations in order to arrive at an estimate for the project.

Tombalakian did not respond to inquiries by the South Bergenite by press time.