Potential Rockland police station sites narrowed to three options; councilors asked to take action
(Photo by Sarah Thompson)
(Photo by Sarah Thompson)ROCKLAND — “If there’s consideration from Council, if there’s any of these buildings that you want to move forward, I think we should act on it,” said Rockland City Manager Tom Luttrell during the May 4, 2026 agenda-setting meeting. “I know we are going to be talking about the possible sale of the current police station this evening in Executive Session. If we decide to actually sell, then we need to actually come up with a game plan as to one of these three locations that we’ve identified, and where we feel the best fit for the police department would be.”
From a list of five options for a future police station, Luttrell pulled three options to the forefront, pointing to each one’s financial and space restrictions: 5 Payne Avenue, 170 Pleasant Street, and 12 Water Street. The two omitted were 139 Rankin Street and 120 Tillson Avenue.
“It was a tough decision,” said Luttrell. “We even looked at renting trailers to put in the parking lot here at City Hall. Or to put them down at the fire department. Or an empty lot somewhere. But that’s not cost effective either. It’s not a permanent home. It’s just throwing money out the door.”
Luttrell offered that 12 Water Street, it may be the best option.
“Only because I feel we can afford that without going to the citizens of Rockland to borrow any funds,” he said.
The location is also the cheapest option.
For expediency, the 12 Water Street rental (with option to purchase) would be available in six months following retrofitting to police business; rent price is $21 per square foot, for $18,875.50 per month. Purchase price $3.6 M; Sq ft 10,786. Totally renovated space.
“We’d be moving into a brand new building,” said Luttrell. “And if we were able to purchase, it would be better.”
Councilors didn’t voice any negative opinion to the Water Street option during the meeting, but they did offer opposing arguments.
Councilor Nicole Kalloch asked about the taxation of waterfront property, which is where the Water Street multi-business building is located. The Water Street complex is taxable, Luttrell responded. However, as long as the City is renting, not owning, the space, the money remains on the tax roll.
Kalloch also maintained that there’s a benefit to owning all four walls of a structure. She revisited the sustainability pitch that was promoted for 170 Pleasant Street. In purchasing the land, the City had considered parceling the unused acreage and renting the space to businesses. However, Luttrell told Kalloch during this May meeting, that there was no guarantee that five businesses would be interested.
170 Pleasant Street would have come with an estimated $1,875,000 purchase price. Renovations were further estimated $3M. Sq ft 13,421. Last autumn, the City engaged an architect to draw plans for the site.
“At the time we thought it would work very well,” said Luttrell, “but we kept moving on, looking at other buildings.”
5 Payne Avenue, most recently a brewery, had a purchase price of $1,475,000 with an estimated renovation cost of $5M. Square footage is 8,957. The interior needs to be reconfigured.
“It’s really not set up for office space,” said Luttrell. “We also felt like we’d have to add an addition on to the building to make it feasible, to add some more square footage as this is only 9,000 sq ft and has no garage.”
Luttrell and Police Chief looked at the site options in many different ways.
“Really, we only considered the ones that we could actually own,” said Luttrell.
He determined the 20 year bonds required to obtain those sites: 5 Payne Ave ($486,093 per year), 170 Pleasant ($373,918 per year), 12 Water Street ($269,222 per year).
“And that would be if we had to bond the entire amount,” he said.
The CDS grant submitted to Senator King’s Office has cleared the first level of approval and is moving on to the next level.
“If we are successful there, the grant that we are going after will pay 55% of the public safety building,” said Luttrell.
For purposes of understanding, Luttrell gave a rough estimate sale cost for the current police station of $565,000. Subtract that sale of the current police station,would create a balance of $3,460,000 to purchase 5 Payne Ave; $1,960,000 for 170 Pleasant Street; and $1,055,000 for 12 Water Street.
And then there’s the Cranberry Isle TIF reserves.
“Looking at 12 Water Street, and the TIF money that we have available, I’m thinking that we can get out of 12 Water Street with no cost to the citizens of Rockland,” he said. “Currently, we have $120,000 in the Cranberry Isles TIF and then if we added the next year, or maybe the next two years, we took another $334,000 out of it, that would basically pay for the entire 12 Water Street project, which would mean we wouldn’t have to go to the voters and borrow any funds for that."
Councilor Penny York asked if there were any significant differences in the timeline for getting the police department into any of those locations. Are there any timeline benefits to any particular building over another?
Absolutely, said Luttrell.
“If we looked at Payne Ave, we haven’t even designed that yet,” he said. “So, you are looking at probably six months of design. And then another couple months of tweaking it, getting voter approval, and then going out to bid for construction. So you are probably over a year out if looking at that site. 170 Pleasant Street has already been designed. We would have to go to voter approval, and then put those documents into construction documents, and then go out to bid for the work/ so you’re looking at a year+ there. The 12 Water Street, that is a built-to-suit. We were told it would take 6 month to build that out for the police station. And if we are successful in selling our police station, we would most likely stay there for the six months and then we could move over to 12 Water Street. That would be the quickest way to move into a new spot.”
Public meeting
City Manager Tom Luttrell and Police Chief Tim Carroll will be available to meet with the public to discuss the importance of a new police station, Thursday, May 7, at 5 p.m., in Council Chambers, Rockland City Hall, 270 Pleasant Street. Click here for livestream. (Sheriff and District Attorney candidate debates will follow, from 7 - 8:30 p.m. Click here for livestream)
During the May 4 meeting, Luttrell summarized the current state of the 1 Police Plaza structure:
The current police station was purchased from MBNA in 2007. Part of the purchase was the development of a condo association, meaning that part of the deal was the City had to sell part of the building to the Rockland Festival Corp and the Maine Lighthouse Museum.
The water, today, keeps coming in. We’re still experiencing flooding every time we even get a little sprinkle. In fall 2024, mold was noticed. Air quality test done in December 2024, mold remediation in January 2025 at a cost of $36,928.47. That included trailers for employees and trailers for storage. Demolition of walls, instillation of new Sheetrock.
The only thing we didn’t do was to put the police department back in regular working order. We didn’t put any flooring in, we didn’t tape the drywall, we just left it rough to – we knew that the water would still come in, so we decided to continue with more expense down the line. The building was put under negative pressure, which basically kept all the bad air going out the window so they could actually do their mold remediation.
We just basically put Sheetrock up, screwed it in and left it with a concrete floor. We didn’t address the windows. All those windows are rotted out. The window sill is just peeling apart.
Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com
See previous Pen Bay Pilot articles:
Rockland seeks Congressional Spending for police station, eyes TIF for help
Potential buyer for Rockland police station; public workshop for relocation draws mixed ideas
UPDATE: Previous $5 million estimate for proposed Rockland police station now reduced to $3 million
Combined Public Safety Building idea tabled, Rockland continues search for new property
