Tue, 08/05/2025 - 1:48pm

Sarah Thompson

Current Police Station at 1 Park Drive, in Rockland. (File photo by Sarah Thompson)

ROCKLAND — An idea to construct a new Public Safety Building housing Fire/EMS and Police on the site of the current fire station has been tabled as of the Aug. 4, 2025 Agenda-Setting meeting of Rockland City Council. The City Manager and the Police Chief will, instead, continue looking at other properties for just the police.

Catching up on Rockland's police station history with Brian Harden

Police, fire and City offices were together on Spring Street until 1949 (The street is now renamed Museum Street and all of those buildings are gone) (Shore Village Story page 74 has a photo of the municipal building when they were all there.). The 1949 Fire Station was at the corner of Spring Street and Union Street where TD Bank is now located.

In July of 1959 after the discontinuation of passenger rail service to Rockland, the City purchased the passenger station at the corner of Union and Pleasant Streets for a City Hall. All City Offices, including the police but not Public Works and Fire, moved to the station. The police station was at the western end of the building and included two or three holding cells under the floor! These cells were dark, dingy and cramped! (They may still exist under the floor of the restaurant kitchens or storage area at the Station).

In 1971, the Rockland Fire Department moved to a new building on Park Street near the intersection of Parks Street and Broadway. The police remained at the City Hall building in the train station for a while, then moved to the Park Street fire station and were located there in what became a Public Safety Building. By then prisoners were taken immediately to the Knox County Jail (No holding cells).

When the City Hall was moved to outer Pleasant Street in the 1990s, a study of City space needs concluded that the police and fire personnel were too crowded at the Public Safety Building on Park Street (which also housed the emergency dispatch center at that time) and plans were drawn to add on to that building. This planned expansion did not happen and the police then moved to the Condominium at One Park Drive in the early 2000s (Some time between 2005 and 2007). Renovations were funded by MBNA and the space became a unit of the condominiumized building.

The police are still at One Park Drive and the fire station on Park Street.

“I understand that this ordinance amendment is having some second thoughts – I guess – on the amount of money,” said City Manager Tom Luttrell, at the Aug. 4 meeting. “I just want to reiterate that the Public Safety Building was basically a building to look to the future – looking at that as a way to build Rockland down the road. But, with the information we have, we have started looking at other buildings to house the police station.”

Luttrell and Chief Tim Carroll have looked at two options on their own, and have received a Realtor list of other properties for sale in the city that may accommodate police personnel and their fleet of vehicles. One listing was at least $2 million, just for the building, putting it out of reach for the City, according to Luttrell. And, the location wasn't optimal.

Though the City had tabled the proposed Public Safety Building idea, in the week since listening to a design presentation, July 23 (that part of the meeting did not get recorded for future viewing), the City did not table a vote for next week to order placement of a referendum question on the November ballot authorizing the borrowing of an amount to finance the construction of a new Public Safety Facility.

“If we go down this path of reducing this amount (the initial $20 million estimate), just for the police station," said Luttrell," we would like to regroup, the Chief and I, and come up with the two properties we’ve looked at, due some due diligence and get some design work done."