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Work on New Police Station Expected to Start in Fall

Rendering of the new police station.

By Vince Conti

CAPE MAY CITY – Work on the new Police Department building at Lafayette and St. Johns streets, adjacent to Lafayette Park, is expected to begin in October, City Manager Paul Dietrich has told the City Council.

Dietrich said at the July 1 council meeting that the project, estimated to cost $7 million, would go out to bid this summer, with a due date for responses by Sept. 10. The council could have the bids before it as early as Sept. 16, he added.

Police Chief Dekon Fashaw said the state-of-the-art structure would allow the department to brings its resources together after a period in which the department used two facilities, in Cape May City and West Cape May.

The plans for the building were worked on by a citizen task force in close coordination with the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. The building design incorporates a tower that will help the structure fit with the city’s historic ambience.

Architect Rob Conley said the building’s brick exterior was modeled to match the façade of the new fire station built in 2023 and located around the corner on Franklin Street.

Cape May voters made a referendum decision to build separate new fire and police facilities in 2020. The issue was central to the campaign of Mayor Zach Mullock as he sought to unseat then-Mayor Chuck Lear. Lear had supported a combined public safety building. Mullock was a member of the council at the time.

The arrival at a construction point for the police station is the fulfillment of campaign promises made five years ago.

The site for the facility was part of a Green Acres land swap that the city negotiated with the state Department of Environmental Protection. The city received 0.14 acres of parkland for the station in return for placing roughly 5 acres of land adjacent to the already preserved area known as the Sewell Tract under Green Acres protection.

Identifying a site that was part of protected land in a city that has multiple guidelines for preserving its historic character, and using that land for a police facility that carries its own state regulations, adjacent as well to the city’s school and its housing authority, involved the city in what Mullock calls an “alphabet soup” of agencies and organizations.

“It’s been a long journey to get to this point,” Dietrich said.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.

Vince Conti

Reporter

vconti@cmcherald.com

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Vince Conti is a reporter for the Cape May County Herald.

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