Jonesboro, AR – JonesboroRightNow.com – The Public Safety Committee on Tuesday heard more discussions regarding the location of a second police station in Jonesboro.

Two properties are being considered: First United Methodist Church’s (FUMC) youth building in downtown Jonesboro, or the former Park Place Inn on Caraway Road. Whichever building is selected will not replace the existing station located at 1001 S. Caraway Road, Jonesboro Police Department Chief Rick Elliott previously told JRN.

The second building would house police operations currently located in various government buildings across the city, which were moved after a structural issue caused the Justice Complex in downtown Jonesboro to be vacated. Police officials previously said the FUMC building would future-proof the department for the next 30-40 years, while the Caraway building would meet its needs for the next 10 years.

| PREVIOUSLY: Committee hears presentation of two lease considerations for second Jonesboro police station

Don Parker, chair of FUMC’s Jonesboro board of trustees, told committee members that he’d had further discussions with Elliott, as well as meetings with city engineering. After meeting with the church’s board of trustees, he had an amended lease proposal.

Parker said it was initially believed the building was 36,000 square feet; however, it was actually 41,226 square feet. The building’s first and second floors are fully furnished, complete with offices, classrooms, a kitchen, meeting rooms, and bathrooms, he said. The building’s third floor is unfinished, he said, but it is heated and cooled. It has 112 parking spaces, including 6 adjacent to the building and 106 across Union Street.

The facility’s base rent would be $31,250 per month and would go up based on the tenant improvement needs of the city. Parker said renovation of the third floor was estimated to cost around $600,000 and, if the church paid for that, the rent would increase to $36,000 per month. Parker indicated the church would pay up to $1 million in tenant improvement costs which would ulitimately increase the monthly rate to $39,000 if the city utilizes the full amount.

In addition, if the city wished to do so, the board of trustees would include an option to purchase the building during the lease at the building’s appraised value. After being asked by committee member Chris Gibson if any rent the city had already paid would go toward the purchase price, Parker responded that was not likely.

“First United Methodist Church is one of two large churches left downtown, and we are committed to staying downtown and committed to being a good partner downtown. We would love to partner with the city on this building and keep the police department downtown,” Parker told committee members.

| ADD US ON GOOGLE NEWS: Click here to see more local news from Jonesboro Right Now

Carroll Caldwell, with Coldwell Banker Commercial, represents the Caraway Road property. This is a one-level, 12,279-square-foot building with 34 parking spaces. The proposed lease term is five years. Coldwell Banker Commercial has the option to sell the property to the city after those five years.

Rent for Caraway would be $16,000 a month, “as is,” or $18,000 a month with a $200,000 a tenant improvement allowance. It sits on about five acres of land, which officials have previously said would leave room for the construction of a future expansion.

This facility is also available for purchase, with a buyout costing around $2 million. It would require some renovation work to install heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and cubicles. A new roof would also need to be installed, costing around $125,000, which Caldwell said Coldwell Banker Commercial would pay for.

Caldwell said the discussion of the two properties was comparing apples to oranges.

“I don’t think this is gonna take a sales job from Don or from me. It’s apples and oranges. So, we’ve got a really good apple, they’ve got a really good orange, so that’s what y’all have to make your mind up on,” he said.

Tuesday night’s presentation was a discussion of the two lease proposals, so no legislative action was taken. Committee members Chris Moore and LJ Bryant said they’d like to hear from police leadership soon about the benefits and drawbacks of each property, which departments and services would be moved where, and more.

Committee chair Brian Emison said the next course of action would be reviewing the buildout plans for each building once completed by the city’s engineering department, at either a special-called meeting or the next Public Safety Council Committee meeting.

“I see a lot of people having different insights to different directions on this, and what necessarily the future of the city beholds, and help us make this decision between the apple and the orange,” Emison said. “Depending on when that information comes in from the engineers, we can make that determination, and we’ll be sure to have police administration there as it coincides with their schedule.”

| DAILY BRIEF: Sign up for the Jonesboro Right Now Daily Brief Newsletter