QUINCY - Quincy is moving forward with a plan for a roughly 9,000 square-foot police station near city hall.

The move follows an assessment written by police Capt. Gene Fretheim, suggesting a 12,700 square-foot building, The present department, housed in city hall, is about 60 years old, and is "grossly deficient in space, efficiency and effectiveness."

The assessment calls for garage bays, an administrative records area, a booking area, a larger lobby, interview rooms, new offices and other improvements, Fretheim wrote. He estimated the cost to be $4.7 million.

"Typically a city will get a new police facility once every fifty years or so. With this in mind the new facility should be planned and constructed to last and be effective for the next 50 years," he wrote.

Police Chief Richard Ackerman told the city council at a recent meeting he needed some direction about how to proceed.

"I believe the next step would be for the city council to authorize the architectural company, we've had in the past working on this issue, to put together some plans based on the needs assessment," he said. "From those plans, we would have a more realistic dollar amount of what it would cost in its final form."

Mayor Jim Hemberry said a nearly $5 million building would drain the city's reserves. He suggested building a roughly a 9,000 square-foot building and using the present city building for storage. His plan calls for spending about $3 million.

"What I would ask council to do is think about not just a new police facility, but the fact that we've also talked about a new city hall," he said. "Actually (the former library building) isn't in such bad of shape that we couldn't just go ahead and when the police move into their new facility make that into city hall in terms of all of our finance and administration offices."

It isn't necessary to remove the present city hall, Hemberry said. If the city could purchase a nearby house, it would be able to connect all of the buildings.

"The police could still use (the city hall) facility for either some of their office spaces or storage, or whatever else," he said. "I don't know that this building wouldn't work as long as it wasn't your main building."

Hemberry agreed it didn't make sense to build a facility to only house 17 people. He pointed out the state and federal governments didn't offer funding to build a new police station.

"I'm not interested in financing it when we have money," he said.

Fretheim and Ackerman agreed with Hemberry taking his plan to architects.