DISCUSSION: What Should the Future Use of the Police Station Be?

It's not quite a done deal, but should the Town of Sudbury approve the finances and design for a new police headquarters on Hudson Road, it will have to decide what to do with the current station on Boston Post Road.

During the Oct. 1 Board of Selectmen meeting, Chief Scott Nix provided some options that came from various sources in town.

"(Combined Facilities Directory) Jim Kelly and I talk all the time, and we want to make the right deicision with the right information," Nix said.

• Lease the building;
• Relocating Sudbury Public Schools;
• Make in an extension of Sudbury Park and Recreation;
• Create a Senior Center South;
• Make it into a museum for the Historical Society;
• Sell it. 

"But once you get rid of town property, it's hard to purchase it back," Nix said. "We could also maintain it until we make a proper decision for the citizens."

Nix said the landlord of Sudbury Crossing, which is adjacent to the current station, has been contacted about possibly buying the property. 

"They have expressed a good amount of interest if we choose to sell," Nix said. "It will make the property more valuable to them."

"It’s prime commercial real estate," Selectman Bob Haarde said. "In the mean time we should hold on to it. It’s commercial real estate and that’s how it should stay."

At Annual Town Meeting in May, officials revised the headquarters article and asked for $627,000 to fund a construction design. That passed as officials will next present an estimated $7.5 million price tag at the 2014 Annual Town Meeting.

What do you think, Sudbury? What should be the fate of the current station if a new headquarters is built? Tell us in the comments section below.