Construction is expected to begin soon on the new Lake Forest police headquarters after the City Council approved financing for the $26 million project that will convert a vacant Conway Park office building.
At its Oct. 6 meeting, the council voted to award construction bids for the project and gave initial approval to a bond ordinance that will fund the majority of the costs. The plan calls for transforming the 98,000-square-foot building at 1925 Field Court into the city’s new police station.
The city purchased the property last year for $3.5 million. Lake Forest’s police and fire departments have shared space at 255 E. Deerpath since the 1960s, but officials say the facility is outdated and too small to meet modern needs.
Under the financing plan, the city will issue approximately $20 million in 15-year general obligation bonds and augment that amount with about $6 million from capital reserves to complete the financing. Finance Director Katie Skibbe said the city anticipates a 3.8 % interest rate on the bonds.
“The cost of the money is pretty reasonable given a 15-year term for what is a long-range project,” said Mayor Stanford “Randy” Tack.
The bonds are scheduled to go to auction in January, when officials hope interest rates will be lower.
Skibbe said the property tax impact will be an additional $183 per year, phased in over three years, for a home valued at $1 million over the life of the bond issue.
The council received a base construction package of about $21 million, along with a $1 million contingency and other costs for furniture, lockers, IT infrastructure, a generator, and gas line installation, plus construction management fees and insurance.
“We strongly believe the design reflects both operational efficiency and numerous opportunities for future growth if needed,” Police Chief John Burke said.
Burke also requested several additional items, including resurfacing the parking lot at the 2008-built facility and installing shatterproof ballistic film on the first-floor windows. The council approved those requests, bringing the total project cost to roughly $26 million.
However, council members denied three other requests: two additional rooftop HVAC units costing nearly $650,000; an emergency operations center that could double as a training room, estimated at approximately $200,000; and an outdoor deck adjacent to the lunchroom for about $55,000.
City Manager Jason Wicha said he believed private funds could be raised to pay for the deck, possibly through the Lake Forest Police Foundation, which has supported department initiatives in the past.
The city will use capital reserves to pay $420,062 for the ballistic film and parking lot work, a move Wicha acknowledged could affect future projects.
“It is coming from the same pool of funds that supports all our other capital needs, so it’s reasonable to expect this could come at the expense of another project down the road,” he said.
Alderman Nick Bothfeld, 3rd, initially voted against the bond ordinance, but City Attorney Julie Tappendorf indicated the vote required two-thirds approval of the entire City Council under city code relating to the establishment of taxes, fees, or charges levied by the city, meaning it needed six votes. With City Council members Nancy Novit, 1st, and John Powers, 2nd, absent, Tack, the mayor, could have provided the sixth vote. Instead, the council voted a second time, and Bothfeld reversed his vote and joined the others.
“Based on what legal counsel was saying, everything would have been held up significantly until we could get the other two council members. I didn’t want to lose time,” Bothfeld said after the meeting.
A vote on final approval of the bond ordinance is expected later this month.
With the police moving out, the city will have to convert the existing Deerpath Road building into a single-use facility for the fire department. City officials previously estimated the conversion would cost about $8 million, but Wicha said that figure may now be low.
Lake Forest is also planning approximately $6.2 million for capital asset maintenance costs over 10 years at the police station and expects to spend about $250,000 annually on janitorial and operational costs at both buildings, according to a city spokeswoman.
To help offset those expenses, officials plan to lease the building’s third floor to outside tenants. Wicha said discussions are ongoing with two interested parties and that he expects more clarity on potential leases in the next two to three months.
“Our intent and comfort level is to be a bit patient to ensure we find the right tenant that is a long-term fit,” he said. “We don’t want to be in a rush to get the space filled, only to have tenants occupy space and then move in and out every four to five years. We want to find parties that we think will be there for the long haul.”
The city awarded the construction contract to Cordogan Clark, which previously handled the project’s design. Construction is expected to begin later this month, with the police department moving into the new facility in fall 2026, according to the city spokeswoman.
Tack said after the meeting he believes the project will save the city $20 million to $30 million by converting the building as opposed to building a new one.
“It’s a huge thing,” he said. “We are able to take a problem that faces a lot of communities with obsolete facilities and no place to build new ones with construction costs that are literally out of their budgets. This is all driven by a one-time opportunity that presented itself with some forward thinking that followed.”
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.