FREMONT, Neb (KMTV) — The current Fremont Police Station on Park Avenue opened as a city municipal building over 60 years ago before becoming the police station in the 90s.
"When they moved us over here there was not a lot of money that was allocated to change the design of the building. So we really moved into a municipal building that wasn't designed for police," said Fremont Police Chief Jeff Elliot.
For 31 years now the Fremont Police Department has been making do with the Park Avenue station, despite what Chief Elliot calls its many flaws that make it compare unfavorably with modern police stations.
"We don't have any prisoner facilities to hold people for even a short period of time. We don't have juvenile facilities, we had to make our own interview rooms. The security we did put in place caused us fire codes issues," said Elliot.
Now the city will spend a little over $17 million dollars on a new station.
Located just down the street on the corner of 8th and Main Street the department is hoping to break ground in the Spring of 2025 and have construction and their move in completed by 2027.
Elliot is hopeful the new station won't just save money on maintenance but also show his officers, and potential recruits, that the city of Fremont will step up to support its police.
"It'd be like a football coach trying to recruit top notch players to his organization and having a stadium that was built 60 years before and falling apart. You don't tend to get the top notch recruits that way," said Elliot.
