After years of study, speculation and work, Belleville will officially open its new police station at the end of July.

Belleville Mayor Mitch Panciuk announced Friday city officials will join Belleville Police Service to formally recognize their new location at 459 Sidney St. on Wednesday, July 29.

Construction on the new building started in 2018 which an anticipated finish of 2019. However, some unexpected roadblocks put the build behind schedule.

“There is still much work to be completed, however, we have a date that we can all look forward to,” Panciuk said, adding that the new facility will be a much larger and state of the art facility.

“This upgrade is more than needed and we will now be able to effectively house our talented Police Service.”

Panciuk noted that project was delayed along the way a couple times with labour relations issues, including a sheet metal workers strike that prevented access to the site as well as some delays with materials.

“But our staff pushed through that and we are pleased to be able to announce we will be officially opening the doors to the new building on July 29,” he said.

The new building will be 67,000 square feet, more than twice the 27,000 square feet of the current building. It will include a new radio system infrastructure with a 200-foot on-site antenna tower and the building has been designed as ‘post-disaster’ for extra structural strength, including having a generator for emergency power.

Belleville Police Chief Ron Gignac said it was a “wonderful” day for the citizens of Belleville and the police service wanted to thank those citizens for allowing the build to proceed and the police to move into the facility.

“It has been long anticipated and its has been a work in progress, but it’s not like we are just building a warehouse here,” he said. “It takes time, it takes commitment. The energy and planning and logistics required is immense.

“We have to to say the work in progress that is about to manifest for the city of Belleville with be a multigenerational facility, and that means we are looking at a 50 year facility and it is being built that way.”

The station will also feature community boardroom available for use by non-profit community organizations and will feature a state-of-the-art forensic evidence examination facility. 

Gignac also stressed the “inter-operability” of the new facility that will allow city emergency services to work more closely together and in some cases provide support such as dispatch to other services should anything happen.

Panciuk explained that due to provincial requirements regarding police services the city will actually be operating out of both the current and new locations for several weeks during the transition.

He said the anticipated “move in” date for the police is the third week in June which will allow the service to work out any kinks in the switch over.

“We are confident with the (July 29) date,” he said. “We have built in some allowances. We have had some challenges along the way and we are conscious of that. But we are confident we will be cutting the ribbon on July 29.”

Panciuk said sometime after the ribbon cutting the city will have a community open house during which residents will be invited to come out to tour the facility.