BARRIE - Barrie has hired a consultant to change course on recommendations put forward by two previous consultants.

For years, the Barrie Police Services Board has struggled to accommodate the growing force. Having outgrown its Sperling Drive headquarters years ago, the force spilled into rented space on Bell Farm Road. Meanwhile, the police board hired consultants – for $40,000 in 2003 and $100,000 in 2008. Both recommended moving the growing force into one centrally located station, with easy Highway 400 access and closer to the growing south end.

In August 2008, the Barrie Police Services Board recommended the city begin looking for land in the Essa Road/Highway 400 area for a new headquarters.

Instead, city council ordered city staff to find a cheaper option.

Last year the city spent $1.35 million to buy an old racquet club on Bell Farm Road, and has now hired a consultant for $35,000 to look at how to adapt it for police, as well as examine how to expand the Sperling Drive headquarters.

“City council somehow believes I had coerced two consultants on two separate occasions to recommend a new building. (City council) hired another, so as to remove undue police influence.

It’s up to $175,000 and three consulting firms,” said police chief Wayne Frechette.

Preliminary findings from the latest consultant, however, reveal the cost of expanding the Sperling Drive headquarters and adapting the old racquetball club could end up costing almost as much as one new centrally located headquarters.

“At the end of the day, what you have is Barrie Police in three separate buildings in the extreme northeast. We’ve had two consultants say we should be in south-central Barrie,” Frechette added.
Some police board members, including Coun. Jerry Moore, said he suspects the preliminary numbers from the latest consultant – slightly less than the $45-million option presented in 2008 – are misleading.

The latest consultant estimates the cost at $37 million – a figure that doesn’t include the expense of buying land and building a parking garage at the Sperling Drive headquarters.

“The consultant tried to cost out (city) staff’s recommendation of the three facilities. He tried to put harder numbers to it. Staff had put this three-facility report together in hopes of saving money,” said Moore.

Moore recalled when Barrie built the Collier Street parkade several years ago the cost rang in at $30,000 per parking space. He estimated the police would need at least 400 spots.

At that rate, the garage would cost at least $12 million, not including the cost of land.

“That cost wasn’t in the report, but it should be in the final report,” he said. “(The draft report) isn’t a true apples-to-apples comparison.”


Fellow board member Doug Jure is also questioning the project’s $37 million cost.

“They were going to reduce (the cost) from $45 million to $25 million,” he said. “So far, the bill is $37 million and there’s still the factor of having to purchase the adjacent lot near the headquarters and build a parking garage.”

Police board chairperson Rick Jones has declared a conflict of interest on the issue, as his planning firm has developer Steve Sperling as a client.

The city’s scenario, advocated by Mayor Dave Aspden, would require purchasing land from Sperling for the parking garage.