Serving a new purpose: Aberdeen Police Department looks to relocate
An old building in Aberdeen will soon serve a new purpose.
ABERDEEN, Miss. (WCBI) – An old building in Aberdeen will soon serve a new purpose. Plans are in the works to move the Aberdeen police to the old Aberdeen Public Utilities building.
Mayor Charles Scott said they are still in the beginning stages.
“We’re in the initial phases of the process. our goal is to give our police dept room to stretch out so we can have a better facility for them to support our city and as you can see where they are located there are a lot of fewer restrictions if they need to move quickly as well as having our other first responder’s next door,” Scott said.
Aberdeen Police Chief Quinell Shumpert said size isn’t the only issue they are having with the current department.
“It’s not so much the size. But when we get a lot of rain like when in the basement where all the files are and stuff is stored, water comes in. We’ve had as much as four inches of water down there, and the plumbing is messed up. That’s the biggest issue and space don’t have much space,” Shumpert said.
Scott said the old utility building has a lot of features, like security cameras, that the police department could use, but they would need to redesign parts of the facility, to cater to the department’s needs.
“We have a couple of issues we are going to have to work through. We would have an architect come in as well as someone from the police department to say what it should look like so that we can make sure it’s operational and functionally correct. What we don’t want to do is go and build it and build it wrong,” Scott said.
While they are still in the beginning stages, Shumpert said they are hopeful to make this their new home.
“It’s great. We are usually at the bottom of the totem poll so to be a priority it feels good,” Shumpert said.
Right now there is no timeline on when they may be able to move headquarters into the new building.
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