THUNDER BAY — Ahead of an expected continued push for a new police headquarters facility, Thunder Bay police say they’ve been forced to temporarily out-source space inside a Canadian Coast Guard building at Keefer Terminal.
Acting Chief Dan Taddeo said the department’s traffic unit is now housed in the facility, with training for the Emergency Task Unit also taking place on site.
It’s not ideal, Taddeo said, noting it’s inefficient and will cost the department about $125,000 a year, but the move was necessary.
“We were looking at all of our options as space is a serious situation here at the police headquarters building. We have limited space for exhibits, training, just to even house our people and to support our primary response and other officers,” Taddeo said, explaining the decision to rent out additional space.
Another option police were considering was erecting portables outside their Balmoral Street facility.
“It still does include portables for 2023 as space is still an issue there.”
Taddeo said Thunder Bay Police chose the Keefer Terminal site because it offered flexible training space.
“Our training space at the police station is almost hybrid. It’s used for meetings, it’s used for training, etc. etc. We’re extremely regulated, so we need space for that. The building we identified does have some good space for training and relieves the pressure here,” Taddeo said.
“It also has some offices attached that we were able to (use), especially with our cybercrimes unit, which is seizing a large amount of exhibits. The space needed to store those exhibits for examination pushed out some other people so we had to relocate some of our personnel here for that purpose.”
The move will also allow the traffic department do complete collision reconstruction drawings too.
Taddeo made another pitch for a new police facility, citing the lack of a firearms range as just one reason the city needs a new $60-million facility. Officers must head to Keefer Terminal to do the required training, rather than being able to do so at police headquarters.
“There are transportation issues. You’re leasing vehicles. They’re very expensive and it’s very inefficient at times. Then we actually have to travel the hour to Nolalu to actually do that requalification part, because there are two aspects.”
Taddeo said the training, under ideal circumstances, would take an hour or two, but as it stands it’s taking the better part of a day.
“That’s one real example of how spread out we get and how inefficient it becomes. And don’t forget, we’re already based out of multiple sites. Our forensic identification staff are with the OPP at their laboratory and they’ve advised us they require more space back,” the chief said.
He added the department’s court staff is based out of the Thunder Bay Courthouse, in space designed to be converted quickly into a courtroom.
“That courthouse is already at capacity,” Taddeo said. “Looking at all of these space issues, we literally could be a house of cards at some point if somebody, beyond our control, wants their space back.”
The first stage of the process to build a new police headquarters, which wouldn’t be ready for at least another four years, began in June with the city issuing a request for proposals for planning and construction to replace the 37-year-old facility. Council last February authorized $2.4-million for project management, design, site analysis and property purchase.
The city is only committed to the first phase of the three-stage project and has not yet approved moving to construction.
