LITTLETON — Storage lockers line the narrow hallways of police headquarters. An old weight room serves as the evidence room. A hallway is where people come to file police reports.
To call Police Department headquarters at the Littleton City Center cramped is an understatement.
“We’re really desperate for space,” said Cmdr. Bill Christensen. “People are on top of each other, and office space is really short.”
But work conditions will get better for the 100 or so employees.
The Littleton City Council recently approved a major renovation and addition that will bring 14,250 square feet of new space.
The $6.2 million project is scheduled to break ground in May and be completed by the fall of 2011.
The project can’t be done soon enough for Littleton officers, who are sometimes forced to work four or more in an office smaller than a dorm room.
“We’ve just run out of room,” said police Lt. Sean Dugan.
Among the biggest improvements is a new, larger evidence storage and processing area. The current evidence room is so small, police have to store evidence in five places outside the department, including a metal storage container in the parking lot.
The department has to send most evidence to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for analysis, but when construction is complete, Littleton will have its own crime lab.
At one time, police had to process vehicles involved in crimes at Bob’s Towing.
More recently, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office has allowed the department to use its facilities. But the new project includes construction of a vehicle exam bay.
A few years ago, voters rejected a property-tax increase that would have funded new police headquarters.
But the Littleton City Council realized that police needed more space, so it moved some money from the Water Utility Fund into a Special Projects Fund for the expansion.
The renovations will include expanded locker rooms, more office space and a new training room that also will serve as the Emergency Operations Center.
A major reason the Littleton Police Department and others across the country need more space is that new DNA laws require them to keep indefinitely almost any piece of evidence that could contain DNA.
“It’s all changing, the whole culture of how evidence is held,” Christensen said.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
