Lakewood officials review city hall space study; police locker rooms and evidence storage flagged as urgent

Lakewood Mayor Mary George and city staff presented a consultant space assessment on Feb. 3 that found the existing City Hall cannot be adapted to meet current operational, accessibility and growth needs without major cost and disruption.

The consultant report, delivered by Weber Murphy Fox, identified immediate capacity and compliance shortfalls in the police facility — notably women’s locker‑room space and evidence storage — and estimated renovation and addition costs. “The space assessment … shows that even with substantial investments into the millions of dollars, it still doesn't solve many, many problems,” Mayor Mary George said during the Committee of the Whole presentation.

Why it matters: The study frames near‑term personnel and legal‑compliance needs (including ADA accessibility) against long‑term planning for a municipal campus that city leaders say must support modern services and be fiscally responsible.

What the study found and what staff emphasized

Director Byington, who led the city’s procurement of the space assessment, described the consultant work: department interviews, employee surveys and Matterport scans were used to produce conceptual floor plans and cost estimates. Byington listed deficiencies including limited office/desk/storage space, elevator and window replacements, customer‑service fragmentation across the campus and continuing ADA shortfalls.

Police Chief Patrick Fisher detailed operational crunch points uncovered by the review: the roll‑call room doubles as a break area and equipment storage; evidence storage is crowded; SWAT and parking‑enforcement equipment share cramped space; and the women’s locker room — built decades ago — is too small for the department’s current staffing. “The women's locker room … we squeeze about 15 or 20 in there,” Chief Fisher said, noting the department now has 14 female officers and 12 female dispatchers.

Comparisons and cost estimates

Staff compared Lakewood’s facilities to neighboring cities and found Lakewood supports a larger sworn and civilian staff total — cited as 130 — in a relatively small building footprint. Conceptual cost estimates presented by the consultant and staff included roughly $15,000,000 to renovate City Hall within its existing footprint, about $2,790,000 for a two‑floor police addition, and roughly $1,300,000 to renovate the annex across the street. Director Byington said those figures include construction, wayfinding, furniture, lighting and technology; they do not include quantified costs for temporarily relocating departments during construction.

Consultant David Thall of Weber Murphy & Fox described tradeoffs that emerged when meeting current needs: expanding one function (for example, a larger women’s locker room) can force reductions elsewhere, reduce lobby space or require substantial demolition. Thall said the conceptual plans include narrative scopes but that the project paused before a formal executive summary and final deliverables were completed because the city leadership decided to reassess options.

Options staff brought forward

Staff presented three paths: 1) do nothing; 2) implement the consultant recommendations (renovate City Hall, renovate annex, build addition for police), acknowledging relocation and disruption costs were not yet quantified; or 3) pursue land or buildings elsewhere to relocate appropriate departments while providing relief to police and courts in the short term. “This is informational at this time,” Director Byington told council; staff asked only to put the assessment on record and continue evaluating next steps.

Council questions and administrative clarifications

Council members pressed for timelines, costs and alternatives. Councilman Dan Bullock asked whether the presentation was the first of a series; Mayor George replied the meeting was intended to get everyone on the same page about next steps. Councilman Kevin Evans and others emphasized the immediate nature of the police accommodations — particularly for female officers — and asked for potential interim measures, such as using annex space or targeted, lower‑cost fixes ahead of a larger capital program.

Staff and the police chief acknowledged constraints: an area adjacent to the jail functions as a sally port and cannot be substantially reconfigured without triggering jail‑compliance requirements. Director Byington also said the consultant applied an inflation escalation (two 5% adjustments for 2024 and 2025 described in the presentation) to arrive at current cost estimates.

What the city will do next

Council asked staff for the consultant elevator assessment and related deliverables; staff said they would provide the reports to council. No formal capital appropriation or bond issuance was proposed or voted on at this meeting; the discussion was recorded as an informational Committee of the Whole presentation and subsequently summarized at full council as “receive and file.”

Ending

City leaders said the police facility needs — particularly locker‑room space for female officers and evidence storage capacity — require “expeditious” attention, but they also signaled the need for further study of relocation, temporary housing during renovation, costs and community impacts before a formal construction plan or financing proposal is advanced. A next phase of analysis and fiscal planning was forecast rather than a scheduled capital program.