The Board of Selectmen last week approved a pair of contracts totaling about $73,000 as the town prepares to move the New Canaan Police Department into a leased building downtown while the agency’s headquarters on South Avenue undergoes a widely anticipated renovation.
The Board of Education is expected to vacate its longtime home at 39 Locust Ave. on Aug. 24, and at that point the town will start outfitting the space to make it ready for NCPD, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. (The Board of Ed is moving into a newly acquired town building at 220 Elm St.)
“We have about 12 weeks to fit out the space to make it ready for the Police Department to move in,” Zagarenski said during the selectmen’s May 2 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “So we plan on moving in there around Thanksgiving time.”
Part of the NCPD move involves the installation of fiber for police emergency communications including computer-aided dispatch, CCTV, intercom, phone, 911 and public safety data network, he said.
The fiber installation will be provided by Crown Castle Fiber under a $21,735 contract, while NorcomCT Northeastern Communications will move NCPD’s entire dispatch console for $51,032. Crown Castle is the certified vendor for the state Department of Public Safety and NorComCT is the police department’s service provider and are “familiar with the console,” which they installed, Zagarenski said.
Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams, and First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, voted 3-0 to approve both contracts.
The selectmen asked whether the appointed Police Department Building Committee was aware of the contracts (yes), whether the cost is covered as part of the overall NCPD project (yes), whether there will be a similar cost in moving the police dispatch console back to 174 South Ave. when the time comes (yes though not as much) and whether the fiber installed at 39 Locust Ave. eventually will be removed (yes).
The estimated $27.5 million renovation of the New Canaan Police Department is expected to start around Thanksgiving and wrap up in the fall of 2025, officials have said.