Polished wood. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Views of the Cascades. People milling about in the tree-lined community area outside.

These are some of the possible spaces that could take place after a new, $42 million Redmond Police Department public safety facility is designed and built north of downtown.

On Feb. 23, FFA Architecture and Interiors hosted an open house with the Redmond Police Department to hear design suggestions from the community.

“Architecture has the ability to be representational, has the opportunity to tell a story,” said Ian Gelbrich, partner for FFA Architecture and Interiors. “The decisions that you’re making today about who you are as a community are going to be reviewed by generations to come.”

The firm had multiple exercises for attendees, including a picture board where people could place green or red stickers if they felt the images evoked, or failed to evoke, Redmond. They also had a word board that asked the community to imagine what words the Redmond Spokesman should use to describe the facility on opening day.

“Some of the words have different meanings for people,” said Richard Grace, partner for FFA Architecture and Interiors. “A lot of these words have meanings in how a building functions, feels, looks.”

Gelbrich said they don’t want it to be extravagant, like the Taj Mahal, or a simple building that doesn’t last. Instead, the firm wants to create a space that fits the Redmond community and is respectful of the community’s investment.

Redmond PD Lieutenant Jesse Peterson picked his own two words for what he hoped to see in the new facility: transparency and resilience.

He picked resilience, he said, “because we might bend but we won’t break.”

Redmond City Councilor Tobias Colvin, who attended the Thursday event, said there are many considerations to take into account when constructing a building of this size and importance. But he said its important to think what the community wants from the project in the early phases of design.

“We’re putting our fingerprint on the building,” Colvin said.

Devin Lewis, Redmond police chief, expects crews to break ground in 2024 and throw the facility’s doors open in February or March 2025.

“It’s exciting because (it’s) now starting to feel more realistic,” Lewis said.

Lewis said they’re drawing inspiration from the Oregon City, Lincoln City and Beaverton stations that have implemented more open-concept designs.

“You can still be safe and secure, but inviting to the public,” Lewis said. “They figured out a way you can make the new police departments look really beautiful and something the community can be proud of.”

Lewis said they hope the building includes a community room that can be used for police training or as an incident command center. But when it’s not being used by staff, it could double as a community room that organizations like Kiwanis or Boy Scouts could use for free.

Current plans also call for a “safe exchange zone” under video surveillance 24/7 so people can complete child custody exchanges or meet Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace sellers.

“Public safety is not just cops,” Colvin said. “It’s one of those key buildings that hundreds of thousands of people will use.”

Problems downtown

After years of fighting for parking spots in downtown Redmond, the new station will also have a parking lot that can fit vehicles for all its staff and community members who need services.

According to Lewis, the current downtown station has 42 parking spots, but only 16 are locked and secure.

“We don’t have enough parking for all of our people,” he said.

Parking isn’t the only problem with the current building. According to Lewis, the HVAC system fails every summer and winter. Sewage backs up and floods the building every couple years.

The department’s water was shut off twice during the last week.

Lewis said current repair costs run between $30,000 to $35,000 a year and eat up 200 city maintenance hours.

The current building is too small to add any new employees. Staff squish into Lewis’ office for meetings and records are spread out across three locations in Redmond. There’s not enough space to process evidence, forcing them to bring it into the breakroom.

“We’ve been processing drugs like fentanyl on the same tables we eat our food,” Lewis said. “We’ve converted closets into offices, bathrooms into closets. We converted all sorts of stuff to try to make this work but we’re bursting at the seams.”

Lewis said he noticed the lack of space as soon as he took the Redmond job in 2019. But he said it’s no one’s fault that they’ve outgrown the building.

Redmond simply blew up in population and experienced unprecedented, exponential growth that required them to expand.

What will happen to the current building?

With the demolition of the former Jesse Hill School next door for the construction of the new, two-story Deschutes County Library, some wonder what will happen to the current police station when Redmond Police move north.

“I’ve had lots of people approach me with different ideas,” Lewis said. “Ultimately this building is owned by the city so it will be above me … We’ll just have to see.”

Lewis said he’s heard ideas including repurposing it into a childcare facility, as a potential space for the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, or mental health or other services that people currently need to go to Bend for, or moving Redmond city court into the building and out of city hall.

At one point, the Deschutes County Library expressed interest in using it as an annex, or for more parking for the new library. Redmond Fire & Rescue has also expressed interest in relocating its administrative offices and focusing the fire station solely on firefighting activities.

Lewis also mentioned that private businesses have inquired as well.

He said that even though he might talk disparagingly about it, he still thinks it’s a fine building — it just can’t function effectively for a 24/7 police department with 65 staffers.

“I could foresee this being used for a lot of different things, probably somebody with more of a staff around 15 to 20,” Lewis said. “The city is open to lots of ideas.”