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La Marque council weighs $17M–$23M options for new police station, examines bond timing and scope
Summary
La Marque City Council and consultants spent the Aug. 5 budget workshop weighing how to deliver a new police station on a constrained budget, with estimates ranging from roughly $17M for a reduced‑footprint building to as much as $23M after inflation and hardening costs.
La Marque City Council and outside consultants spent much of an Aug. 5 workshop discussing options and costs for a new police station, focusing on tradeoffs among building reuse, new construction on city-owned land, modular construction and where to put soft costs in the city’s financing plan.
Consultant Alec Luong of Project Luong said engineers reverse‑engineered the existing building and concluded bringing it up to the higher “risk category 4” required for a police facility would require substantial steel and foundation work. "We need to add about 50% more steel to the building to make it strong enough to meet category 4," Luong said, and estimated that disassembly and reassembly would add roughly a $1M premium and would likely leave total project costs in the same order of magnitude as new construction.
Luong described a site option on parcel A — city‑owned land with grandfathered detention — as the most straightforward place to clear and rebuild. He said a new stick‑built facility on that site produced an order‑of‑magnitude estimate near $20M, and that two‑years’ inflation could push the total to roughly $23M by the time construction completes.
Chief Wagner (police) and other department officials told the council they could reduce space for future growth to make a smaller project work. "Maybe I don't need the space for the two additional patrol officers," Wagner said, adding the department could design for future expansion if the immediate budget required a smaller building.
Luong also described modular construction as feasible for much of the building, but said hardened components — the sally port and jail areas and the levels of ballistic resistance the city wants — remain a challenge for modular vendors. "They can do Kevlar wrap but it's not apples‑to‑apples with CMU block for ballistic resistance," Luong said, referring to feedback from Ramtek (a modular builder).
Council members and the interim city manager pressed staff on financing choices. City staff stated the council had earlier agreed to hold the tax rate at 39 cents, which would generate roughly $17.5M in bond proceeds if voters approve; Luong and others warned that price escalation and soft costs could require higher bond amounts or scope reductions. "If the council's direction is to deliver me a building for $17.05M, that's what we're going to go do," Luong said, adding the design team could return options showing what would have to be cut to hit a lower hard‑cost target.
Multiple council members urged speeding up planning and leveraging grant and other outside funding for soft costs. The council also discussed timing for a bond sale and the fact that proceeds sold in 2025 likely would not be used until 2027 when actual construction begins, exposing the project to inflation risk.
Next steps: staff and consultants were instructed to continue refining estimates, to identify potential grant or other outside funding for equipment/FF&E, and for city planning and finance staff to present a firm financing recommendation for the council’s consideration ahead of the bond timetable.
