By CARRIE STAMBAUGH - The Independent
ASHLAND — The new Ashland Police Station is expected to be completed on schedule by the end of December but it will not be fully operational until 2010.
City officials took action Thursday to revise the traffic laws in place for the alley next to the police station in preparation for the opening.
“It’s just getting more exciting every day. Everyone over here obviously can’t wait to make the move. I look forward to getting in the building but not the moving,” said Ashland Police Chief Rob Ratliff.
“We’re starting to see some of the finished paint going on and we’re starting to see some of the cabinetry going in and they are starting to lay some of the tile flooring, so it’s all really starting to come together,” he said.
Contractors are expected to lay the base coat of asphalt on the alley way this week and will be placing sod around the building soon. More extensive landscaping probably will not be completed until spring, according to Ratliff.
The city, he said, expects to receive a certificate of occupancy for the building by the end of the year and will begin moving evidence and other equipment in at that time.
“We probably won’t be in there and fully operational until sometime after the first of the year. Probably sometime in February,” Ratliff said.
Officials are working to measure and let bids for new furniture and the new computers and other equipment the department will get as part of the move.
Those costs are not included in the $3.9 million construction price of the building and are expected to cost approximately $400,000.
Other preparations are also being made for the move across the street.
The Ashland Board of City Commissioners approved the first reading of an ordinance Thursday night to change the alley running between 17th and 16th streets parallel to Winchester and Greenup avenues to two-ways.
“We’re making it two-way so it will be legal for us to come and go in and out of the alley,” he said. All other blocks of the alley will remain one way heading north.
CARRIE STAMBAUGH can be reached at cstambaugh@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.
