Idaho Falls plans to build new police station on recently purchased Stockyard land

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - The City of Idaho Falls finalized its decision to purchase Idaho Livestock Auction Company, known as the stockyards, in a city council meeting on Friday morning. They plan to use the land to build a new police station. 

The City previously signed a contract to purchase the land on Northgate Mile with a clause that they could do environmental testing and inspection of the property and then determine before November 11th if they wanted to follow through with their purchase. 

The Idaho Falls Police Department tells us that the EPA study came back all clear except for one of the buildings that had asbestos, which is something The City previously knew about and is expected from an old property.

The cleanup for the asbestos will be $30,000 on top of the land purchase price of $675,000.

IFPD says that the next step is to hire an architect to determine the cost for the building and after that, the council will get together to determine how to fund the project. 

With the new facility, Idaho Falls Police Department Chief of Police, Bryce Johnson said, “We want to bring us all together, right now we are very fragmented, we have multiple places, people all over the place working. We want a facility where the public feels comfortable talking to us, one of the things people have to be able to do is to engage their government, and when it comes to policing, that’s even more important.”

Some things the department was looking for when determining where to build a new station were: 

• A property size of at least 5 acres, which would allow room for growth. 
• A location with multiple access points to multiple roadways. 
• Proximity to high crime areas, which would allow them to respond to those areas quickly and hopefully boost those communities with their presence. 
• A location that would be a benefit to the community, like redeveloping an existing location to turn it into a community asset. 
• Cost, making sure the best option was selected to use taxpayer dollars wisely. 

“After 125 years this is a really great wonderful thing for the department for the community and for The City,” said Johnson.