Everyone appreciates old-school police work, but do police have to work in an old school? The town will soon decide. Burlington police are proposing a new $46.2M facility that both replaces and resembles the current police station, the former Union School. Town Meeting will hear the proposal May 13.
Burlington Retro approves. This website is about documenting change, not stopping change. Yes, it’s hard to part with quaint old buildings. They contribute much to a town’s character. They provide a “skyline.” But they are organic things with a lifespan, subject to the ravages of time and the elements. The Union School marks an era, but every era comes to an end. In the early 1990s, the building got a new “lease on life” as a police station, but that lease has run out. Here’s what it’s like inside the place:
- It’s a maze — The labyrinthine floor plan wastes everyone’s time just trying to move around.
- Havoc instead of HVAC — The rickety system wastes the town’s money and spills water into ceilings and floors regularly. Mother Nature and Father Time have tag-teamed this building for so many years, there’s hardly a room that isn’t water-damaged, windy, frosty or warped. It’s a constant game of Whac-A-Mole with one issue or another. Wind whistles under warped windows loudly enough to drown conversation in some of the offices.
- Safety hazards— Cracks are forming in the block walls, likely because the building’s ancient underground footings have washed way. Waterlogged ceilings occasionally collapse on desks. The plumbing dates back to 1927, so toilet water leaks into ceilings, sending odor everywhere. Little sewer flies are everywhere in the building if you look closely. Hornets’ nests lurk among the checkerboard of missing ceiling tiles, ravaged by water leaks. These intrusions force some hazardous workarounds, like electrical cables running along the floor near the locker room showers. Air quality throughout the entire building is akin to an old basement bathroom. Police lockers are unventilated and foster mold on anything left inside them for more than a couple of days. Ceiling vents and floor tiles are peppered with black mold. One stairway is clearly much steeper than modern safety codes would allow. Another stairway requires ducking so you don’t bang your skull on the ceiling. Neither can be rectified without an extreme makeover of large areas. Building codes say if you update one thing, you have to update lots of things. The attic has relics from the Union School: doors, windows and student desk/chair combos. But it’s not much fun to browse because you could fall through the floor if you don’t watch your step.
- Vulnerable — Ground-level windows lead to sensitive areas like the electrical panel. Unruly prisoners come into the building within easy reach of the main switchboard, police ammunition and civilian hallways. Prisoner cells violate modern safety codes. One has a broken surveillance camera, but replacement parts are unavailable because the equipment is obsolete. The juvenile cells are supposed to be sound-isolated for privacy. Not here. Everyone in the vicinity can hear conversations. Crime evidence is kept in a locker room with buckling, moldy floors and big windows that can let in light (bad for DNA evidence) or intruders looking to destroy evidence. Doorways, walls, ceilings run afoul of modern fire codes. Public records on the top floor are low-hanging fruit for a fire. Ditto the electrical panel that runs the place. The computer servers are pulled away from walls to make sure they stay dry. Basically, the entire operation could face a shutdown at any time due to any number of “old building” issues.
Here, see for yourself:
This is the path to a new station:
Show the plan to various town boards — The Planning Board, Select Board, Capital Budget, Zoning Bylaw Review Committee and Land Use Committee have already seen it. Police will show it to the Ways and Means Committee May 1 and return to the Select Board May 6. Long story short, the “Board Tour” is well underway. No big objections so far. All agree this is the right time, and the current location is the right place.
Get approval from Town Meeting — It’s set for May 13. Approval would require three votes:
- Two related to rezoning part of the sculpture park area next to Grandview Farm on Center Street. The sculptures would have to move closer together or entirely elsewhere.
- One related to the $46.2M price tag. It will cost the average Burlington taxpayer about $150/year for 20 years starting when construction is done. Overall, Burlington taxpayers have it easy compared with surrounding towns.
Design phase — About 10 months of decision-making about the project, all the details about materials used and the overall “character” of the building. Members of the Police Station Building Advisory Committee have pushed for a design that evokes the Union School, to preserve the historical likeness on the common. Even though some former students would rather forget the place, it’s part of the fabric of the town, literally:
Bidding process — Two or three months to accept bids for a project manager and building contractor.
Construction — About two years, while the police operate from either rented office space or a town-owned area like the Vine Brook water plant, or a bunch of trailers, or some combination of these things.
There’s some irony here. The Union School opened in 1897 as a model of efficiency. This was during the Industrial Revolution, when “economies of scale” dominated thinking. A huge factory delivered more bang for the buck than a bunch of little factories, therefore one central school must be better than the four little neighborhood schools we used prior.
But what about transportation? How would simple, rural children make their way to a central school? Good news. The state had just mandated free transportation to school starting in 1869. Problem solved! You could attend the new Union School no matter how long the ride or how poor you were. At first, Burlington offered a horse-drawn “bus” nicknamed the Barge. Then the automobile literally paved the way to the Union School in the early 1900s.
With everything under one roof, this Burlington education factory soon found its wheelhouse.
- We could order supplies in bulk at reduced prices. Basic things like paper were very expensive for a little farming town.
- We could store everything in one place instead of shuffling throughout the town.
- Only one building to maintain; one school yard to maintain.
- One school meant fewer administrators. Much cheaper!
- Curriculum-wise, it was easier to keep students and teachers on the same page. Literally.
- We could deal with student and personnel issues centrally, and tweak the whole machine for optimum efficiency over time.
And so the building makes perfect sense as a late 19th century schoolhouse. It makes no sense as a 21st century police headquarters. Let’s set the cops free to police the town instead of their crumbling building.
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