After property search, Wilmette says current police station site is best choice for proposed new station

Following what Wilmette officials called an “exhaustive evaluation” of potential sites for the town’s proposed new police station, they ended up back where they started.

The Village announced in an email on Friday, Oct. 25, that it wants to build a new station on the same site as the current one at 710 Ridge Road, an approximately 1-acre property adjacent to Howard Park.

The location and proposed station will be the subject of an open house (6 p.m.) and Public Safety Committee meeting (7 p.m.) on Nov. 14 at Village Hall, 1200 Wilmette Ave.

“Frankly, it’s the only realistic option we are left with,” Village Manager Mike Braiman said. “We are a fully built out community that really doesn’t have open land or industrial buildings that can be an adaptive reuse. Without being able to purchase something at a reasonable price, we were left with the current location.”

In the Village’s email to residents, seven properties are listed as sites the Village seriously reviewed before eliminating. Private properties Imperial Motors (721 Green Bay Road), Scott Funeral Home (1100 Greenleaf) and Treasure Island (911 Ridge Road) reportedly are all too small for the project, and Sacred Heart Convent (2221 Elmwood Ave.) reportedly too expensive.

The Village says it looked at the Beth Hillel Congregation land prior to the park district purchasing it, and officials found no luck negotiating with the district or local schools for their public lands.

The closest suitor was the family who owns the vacant Higgins property, 200 block of Ridge Road, which features a historic but abandoned house and is the former home to Hubert Hoffmann & Sons Greenhouse. But the talks recently reached an impasse.

“We had a prolonged negotiation, a cooperative negotiation between two parties,” Braiman said. “Ultimately, we were too far apart on the financials and other components of the deal to make it happen.” 

Braiman said a buildout on the current police station property would impact police activities, but to what extent is not yet known. An on-site project will not impact the residences of Village Green Atrium, a senior housing development just north of the site; however, could encroach on the southwest portion of Howard Park.

He said the process has a long way to go and the Village is committed to working with the community on the final product.

“It’s important to us to work closely with stakeholders on this with the concerns of possibly encroaching on Howard Park,” Braiman said. “We will work closely with neighbors and users on a solution that meets public safety needs and limits the impact on the park as much as we can.” 

Refresher

As previously reported by The Record, Wilmette officials first renewed conversations around a new police station in May of 2023 when the board of trustees approved a needs assessment and land use study. 

Since, the proposed station, with an original pricetag near $55-$60 million, has been the subject of nearly 20 public meetings. The Village has created a dedicated webpage for the project.

In February, FGM Architects presented its study recommending a new police facility with square footage north of 60,000. Since those initial projections, the proposed size and scope of the project has decreased, according to village officials. The newest recommendations for the facility are just over 54,000 square feet with a preliminary budget estimate of $51.4 million.

A next step would be putting a contract for conceptual design services on the Village Board’s agenda. 

During a late August meeting, village officials said they can fund the $50-million-plus public facility investment without increasing property taxes for debt service. 

Erik Hallgren, Wilmette’s assistant village manager, presented trustees during that meeting with the findings of an in-depth financial analysis showing the Village could utilize a significant portion of its reserves for the project. According to Hallgren, the village’s recommended reserve level is $12.2 million, or a 30 percent reserve target. Based on the projections presented in August, the village is expecting to be approximately $9.3 million over that target reserve level.

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