Sandy's police department may soon get a new headquarters if city residents approve it.

The city council opened a bid on May 5 to hire a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for a new police station. If hired, Sandy's elected leaders will review the advisor's finished report and decide whether to put the question of issuing a bond to finance the project on next year's ballot.

Consultants would determine whether a proposed 47,000-square-foot building meets Sandy's police needs or if remodeling an existing building is sufficient. The study would also feature design plans and cost estimates for all the potential locations suggested by councilmembers, including the city's recently purchased Arbor building.

Sandy police currently need nearly 10,000 square feet of additional space, according to an administrative report presented to the council in January.

Councilmember Kris Nicholl first proposed constructing a new police headquarters in a February memo. The councilmember's project proposal suggested placing it in the westside parking lot of the Justice Court building. This would create a "Justice Campus," serving as a "centralized hub for residents to oversee all public safety and legal matters in one recognizable location."

Sandy lawmakers picked Arbor plaza as another location to study during May's meeting despite administrators ruling out putting a police station in the office building when the city bought it in February.

"The Arbor building was purchased with the idea that we could move other departments in the Arbor building and free up other space we have access to for the police department to expand," Council chair Brooke D'Sousa said in May. "If there's this idea we'd like to move forward with a Justice Campus … and the Arbor building isn't included in consideration, then we may have more space than we actually need."

Sandy's police operations are currently spread across three locations, with several facilities in need of additional space, including an evidence room and a gear storage locker, according to Nicholl's memo proposal.

A new headquarters, Nicholl argues, would also help retain and recruit cops. Since the station could be designed to prioritize police officers' mental health. 

"Some of the police department areas are very gloomy, and it is a very gloomy profession sometimes, so I think they deserve a space where they can have natural light and just relax," Nicholl said when first presenting her proposal to the council on Feb. 10.

The council member also contends that establishing a new police station is preferable to seeking an existing building, as retrofitting a commercial property to meet law enforcement needs can become a "money pit."

"Police departments require highly specific infrastructure—hardened exteriors, secure 'sally ports' for prisoner transport, specialized evidence ventilation, and secure IT server rooms," Nicholl's memo states. "A new building allows us to build to our exact specifications from day one, avoiding the 'square peg in a round hole' frustration of a retrofit that inevitably requires constant, expensive modifications."

Sandy lawmakers will vote in June on whether to hire a consultant to conduct the feasibility analysis. A ballot question on a general obligation bond would be presented to voters in November 2027.