Norwich City Council endorses city requests for new state grant program

Norwich ― The City Council quickly voted Monday morning to endorse three grant requests through the state's new Community Investment Fund.The fund is aimed at supporting projects in distressed municipalities.To meet the opening round grant deadline, the council held a special meeting at 10 a.m. to endorse requests for $8 million for the projected $40 million new police station, $10.4 million to revitalize historic lower Broadway and $500,000 for brownfields renovations as part of a proposed $4.9 million renovation of the former Reid & Hughes building on Main Street.Aldermen voted unanimously without comment to endorse the police station request and made few comments on the other two projects before unanimously endorsing each one separately.After the meeting, Mayor Peter Nystrom said the city plans to seek additional state grant funding opportunities for the police station project, as the Community Investment Fund limits capital projects to a maximum grant of 20%. One idea would place the station on Mahan Drive on city-owned land between the Rose City Senior Center and the Ox Hill Road intersection, displacing the city's skateboard park.But Nystrom said he would prefer a downtown location, perhaps using the Bishop School on East Main Street, which would no longer be used under a proposed school construction project to be put to voters in November.Police Chief Patrick Daley, who did not attend the morning meeting, said the need for a new police station never disappeared completely after voters soundly rejected a $33.4 million plan for a new police station in the former Sears department store in a November 2012 referendum. Daley said the need is "getting magnified each year," lately with lack of locker room space for female officers.When the CIF grant program was approved by the legislature in spring, Daley said it was a good time to revive the project.Daley, Deputy Chief Corey Poore and other senior officers met behind closed doors with the City Council a week ago to discuss the idea.The search for a site would start with the 2013 study that followed the referendum defeat. That study ranked the former Buckingham School site on Washington Street as the top site, but Daley said neighbors strongly opposed locating the police station there.Other top sites in the study included land off John Edwards Drive behind the track; the Mahan Drive land; site of the former Greeneville School, now proposed for a new school; land off Prentice Lane behind Sandy Lane Apartments; the New London County Mutual Insurance building on High Street; the city ballfields on Mechanic Street and commercial property on West Thames Street."It's too early to tell on sites, whatever works the best," Daley said. "The committee put a lot of work into the study, so it makes sense to start there."Attached to Monday's council agenda was a bullet point list of shortcomings with the current police station at 70 Thames St. overlooking Norwich Harbor. The 1980 station, "was undersized from day one," the top point stated. The building cannot be expanded, there is not enough room for parking and it lacks meeting space for community outreach.The current station is 22,000 square feet, but a needs study showed the station needs 51,000 square feet of space."The better equipped a police department is, the more their professionalism increases and quality of work grows," the final bullet point stated. "All citizens regardless of their zip code should have access to a professional, impartial and fair-minded police department."c.bessette@theday.com