The Owen Sound Police Service. (Matt Hermiz/Bayshore Broadcasting)
The Owen Sound Police Service is getting a new dispatch centre next year.
City council approved a recommendation at Monday’s meeting to award a $644,000 contract to Allen Hastings Inc. to complete the project.
It was the lowest of seven bids the city received.
According to a city budget document, the project will include the renovation of an unoccupied space on the second floor of the police station. New windows, ceilings and mechanical and electrical upgrades are part of the job.
“Our current communications centre is outdated. It has very confined spaces, and is split into two different rooms, which isn’t effective for proper communication,” says Owen Sound Police Chief Craig Ambrose. “And the size certainly doesn’t meet the needs.”
The Owen Sound Police Service dispatch centre provides emergency communications for six police services and more than 40 fire departments across Ontario, according to a city staff report.
Ambrose says the new dispatch centre will include excess capacity to accommodate for future growth.
“We’ve been very successful in acquiring other services, which offsets the cost to the local tax payer,” Ambrose explains. “The planned development would have 10 desks operating, which would give us the capacity to potentially look for increased revenue moving forward.”
Construction is expected to start sometime early in 2024, and Ambrose says the hope is the new dispatch centre will be operational before the summer.