About

The Burlington Police Station has occupied this facility for over 30 years, originally built in the 1890s. Due to its outdated design, a feasibility study has determined that building a new police station on the existing site is the best course of action to meet current operational requirements and modern building codes.

The Burlington Police Station was originally built in 1897 as the Union School. The building housed four classrooms; two up and two down. In 1923, four more rooms were added along with interior plumbing. Further renovations occurred during the early 1990’s allowing the police department to move into the building in October 1992. The building was never properly designed to be an effective police station. The layout is fraught with design flaws and there is so much wasted space due to the layout of the original hallways and classrooms. Many personnel have been crammed into spaces that were never designed as offices.

As the department has grown and its functions expanded the building has not kept pace. The major mechanical, fire suppression, electric and plumbing systems are all at or near end of life and need to be replaced. Over the course of 32 years, the building has certainly served its purpose. The town and department management have made conservative fiscal decisions on what repairs to undertake as the building aged. Over the years, we have moved toward the inevitable recognition that a new station is necessary.

The station is registered with the Massachusetts Historical Commission. However, since the beginning of the police department’s occupancy, many changes have been made to the building that have erased much of the historical significance. Wooden shingles have been replaced with vinyl siding; the windows were replaced in 2006 with aluminum-framed double paned systems, the front porch has been demolished and replaced with modern building materials; the roof has been repaired after multiple instances of damage and asphalt shingles have replaced slate tiles. Recurrent leaks in the roof, along with inefficient HVAC systems, have led to significant water damage and mold within the entire interior.

Security concerns reign at the top of the priority list for a new station. The layout of the building defies best practices in many areas, one being the inability to keep prisoners separate and apart from each other and the public/police employees. A new police station will be designed with a modern processing facility that will ensure officer and prisoner safety. Additionally, the current building, as large as it is, does not allow for any member of the public to be interviewed in private in the lobby. The lobby is one of the worst areas of the building as it is small, uninviting and houses restrooms that overflow due to plumbing issues. It fails to address the privacy concerns necessary to carry out police business and is wholly inadequate to serve our residents and the overall Burlington community.

In September, 2022, Town Meeting approved a feasibility study to address the needs of the department and to explore the current conditions of the station to determine whether it was possible to rehabilitate it or build a new one. Town Meeting approved $150,000 for this purpose and in November, 2022, the town contracted with Kaestle Boos Associates (KBA) to run the program. The feasibility study kicked off in January, 2023 and KBA has been hard at work meeting their promised deadlines for the project. Specifically, KBA is tasked with the following deliverables:

Program development whereby KBA studies the department’s existing operations, personnel structures, workspaces and workflow
Existing conditions evaluation to help the town understand the possible options for the project (renovation versus new build)
Conceptual design, site assessment and site selection
Schematic designs
Schematic design opinion of probable costs (including soft costs)
Final Report
Community outreach (presentations and website)

At this time, basically all of the components of the feasibility study are completed and it has been determined that the best course of action is to build a new police station on the existing site. A Police Station Building Committee (Committee) has been set up and has begun public meetings to discuss and plan based on the recommendations from KBA. As stated in the Existing Conditions Report, Executive Summary:

“While it was evident that the existing facility currently provides space for the BPD to operate, it does not meet the current codes or the operational requirements for a modern Police Station. In all cases, the building has functionally outlived its useful service life for modern police operations. It is our recommendation that the existing building be demolished, and a new code compliant facility be built that will support the current and future needs of the Burlington Police Department.” (page 3)

Some of the major concerns with the existing station focus on the current structure of the building as it relates to modern seismic (earthquake) building codes, lateral or gravity concerns (wind), stair cases that are not code compliant and fire rated and our inability to meet current requirements under the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency provisions (Stretch Code) of the state building code. These examples are just a few in the overall assessment and the full existing conditions report can be accessed here.

The Burlington Police Department strives to serve the community with professionalism.

We look forward to continuing this process with KBA, the Police Station Building Committee and the Burlington community at large. We welcome any questions or concerns and invite you to keep up to date with our progress by checking periodically on this website or accessing the public meetings for the Committee.

Please check out the FAQ’s and other areas of this site to better understand the current conditions of the station and we welcome any feedback.