Work continues April 9, 2024, on the new Milton-Freewater Police Department.

MILTON-FREEWATER — Walls are up. Plumbing is connected. Floors are gleaming. Lockers await filling and the dispatch command center already evokes the sound of police radio chatter.

But a set-in-stone opening date for Milton-Freewater’s new police station still evades the calendar.

Originally scheduled for completion in October 2023, the glass and brick structure should be “substantially completed by mid-April,” according to Linda Hall, former city manager, “and then after that there is a tremendous amount of work and coordination to get the dispatch center transferred over to full operations in the new center.”

Hall said the final move-in could happen around mid-May.

Whenever the day comes, the city’s law enforcement staff will leave behind the cramped, dark space in the basement of city hall, where the department has been for nearly 100 years.

Since her retirement Jan. 31, the city has retained Hall as a project liaison for the new police station that voters approved nearly three years ago. So far, payments for Hall’s services added up to $3,102.

Her role comes in addition to project oversight provided by S&K Mountain Construction in Walla Walla and Portland-based FFA Architecture and Interiors.

The architecture firm holds a lot of sway over the station build, Hall said.

“It is their design and they have, in essence, said their design is structurally sound and will meet all the criteria (we) want,” Hall said. “They come and do inspections to make sure the work meets (specification) or that an adequate substitution is approved.”

FFA comes again this week to go through the police station with a “fine-toothed comb,” she added, “and they’ll call out whatever is not within their specs.”

General contractor S&K Mountain has been charged $500 per day past its originally projected completion date. That tab reached $66,000 by the end of February, Hall said.

The 2021 bond to pay for the station, on Columbia Street directly behind city hall, was $7.7 million. Although projected costs eventually exceeded that amount — as prices for lumber, metal and sheetrock rose — Hall has said in updates that employee-led design changes have cut costs by about $400,000.

The most recent project estimate comes in at $7.5 million, she said.

City officials have blamed supply chain glitches and other issues for the delayed completion. Especially problematic was the months-long delay in receiving a customized electrical panel, which finally landed here in late February.

Hall said getting dispatch services moved over will require coordination from about five agencies, including a Florida-based subcontractor supplying camera and recording systems.

“We have done our best to read the crystal ball and get all these scheduled in advance, but it is very difficult to do given the amount of detail and coordination of several businesses and agencies,” she said.

Design additions, such as installing mirrored film to windows to create staff privacy, and a paver path for easier walking around the outside of the new station, have taken some extra time, she said.

“We also discovered, once the building was built, that the neighbors to the south could see inside the building from their dining room, and the police could conversely see inside their house,” Hall said in an email. “Obviously this was not acceptable, so we are putting in a cedar privacy fence that will be a visual block between the PD and the house.”

Landscaping has been started and will continue after city crews have time to assess if more is needed, with an eye toward low water and maintenance needs, she noted.

A ribbon cutting for the station will be planned for summer, Hall said.