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Seabrook officials outline $15M police station proposal as residents raise flood and school-safety concerns
Summary
City staff described serious space and safety shortcomings at the current Seabrook Police Department and presented two potential new-site options that would be paid by a bond if voters approve; residents and staff disputed building-in-a-floodplain trade-offs and asked the city to study renovation and alternatives.
City Manager Gail Cook and Police Chief Ralph Nelson told a Seabrook town-hall audience that the existing police station is cramped, medically and operationally outdated and vulnerable to storm surge, and staff presented two potential sites and a preliminary $15,000,000 construction estimate for a new facility.
Chief Nelson described cramped evidence and property storage, a booking area with inadequate separation between arrestees and officers, small locker rooms and a dispatch area with only two consoles that sometimes fails down to one. "A lot of the evidence is mandated that we keep it for 100 years in some cases," Nelson said, adding that current circulation and interview-room acoustics create operational and safety problems.
The city presented two candidate locations: a city-owned Lakeside site near Lighthouse Daycare and Ed White Elementary ("Site 1") and a privately owned lot at Bayport/Meyer Road across from a Meijer and McDonald’s ("Site 2"). City staff said the Lakeside parcel would require no land purchase; the Bayport/Meyer site would require acquisition and additional detention work. The planning-level estimate presented for the police-station building was $15,000,000; staff also showed a separate $3,000,000 line described as probable additional project costs related to a non-city-owned site (land and detention), and noted an asking price of $2,700,000 for the Bayport/Meyer parcel reported by the broker.
Staff described a timeline if a bond is placed on the ballot and approved: council consideration in February, a May election (staff used May 2025 in the presentation), a bond sale in July and closing in August–September, followed by 9–10 months of final design, a bid process (target May 2026) and about one year of construction. Finance Director Mike Gibbs estimated the tax impact per $300,000 home (with a 20% homestead exemption) as about $97 annually for a $15,000,000 bonded project; a $3,000,000 scenario would cost about $33.83 annually on the same home value.
City floodplain staff and engineers addressed storm-surge and FEMA issues. The Lakeside site sits at elevations near the community base flood level; staff said they expect to raise the finished elevation of the building and site areas to about 14.5 feet above mean sea level and then petition FEMA for a letter of map amendment to remove the structure from the mapped flood zone. "We would be able to show those elevations back to FEMA and we would be granted a letter of map amendment," a city floodplain representative said. Staff emphasized the elevation work and detention as part of the project cost for the non-city-owned lot.
Residents pressed the city on location and flood risk. Jennifer Nielsen, who identified herself as a Seabrook Island neighborhood resident and parent of Ed White students, said dozens of children use the Lakeside golf-cart path for school pickup and expressed concern about police station traffic and prisoner transport near schools and daycare. "There's a larger amount of kids who take the path ... anywhere from 50, 75, possibly a hundred kids," Nielsen said, urging the city to reconsider siting near the school.
Public commenters also suggested alternatives to a new building: renovate the existing station, create smaller precincts or satellite offices at other city-owned facilities, increase staffing and equipment rather than invest in a building, or use temporary off-site storage (for example, an air-conditioned conex container) to relieve the evidence-storage shortage. Several speakers, including commercial lender Josh Pearl and long-time residents, urged staff to provide more operational and cost data before asking voters to approve tens of millions in debt.
City staff said they had not completed a full assessment of renovating the current station and that initial planning has focused on locating a facility outside the lowest-elevation areas to improve resiliency. Staff also invited the public to take tours of the existing police facility and visit information tables after the presentation.
No formal council action was taken at the town hall; staff said the council would deliberate whether to place bond measures on a future ballot. The city advised residents to review presented materials and to submit feedback via comment cards or a QR-linked website that staff provided at the meeting.
