By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

Following an introductory presentation on Aug. 6 and an open house event on Sept. 24, Kennett Township has continued to receive concerns and complaints from several of its residents about the proposed new home for the Kennett Township Police Department, who question whether the estimated $10 million facility is a sound investment, or if it is even necessary.

At the township’s Oct. 22 Board of Supervisors meeting, township Manager Alison Dobbins and Director of Public Works Ted Otteni addressed several of those concerns in a presentation that supported the construction of the facility, which is proposed to be located adjacent to the Kennett Township Building at 801 Burrows Run Road in Chadds Ford.

“I have appreciated the thoughtful input that we have received – emails and phone calls and open house communication,” Dobbins said. “We’ve heard from people who support it, and from people who have concerns, so tonight what we want to do is take the concerns that we have been receiving and do our best to address them.”

Entitled “Municipal Facility Expansion,” the presentation began with Dobbins providing the short history of the township’s idea to construct a new police facility, a process that began in September 2024 in the form of a feasibility study. Through a partnership with Ambler, Pa.-based GKO Architects, the township created a needs assessment analysis that evaluated current conditions and projected staffing and operational features; accumulated an inventory of existing spaces and usage in the current police department; and determined the impact of a potential new police facility on inter-department relationships between the township’s departments. 

At the Aug. 6 meeting, the board was presented with three different building options, but ultimately chose to explore the potential of constructing an 11,500-square-foot option – a facility that will include “hard areas” like a sally port, an evidence and prisoner processing area and holding cells on one side of the building, and “soft areas” that will include a front lobby, department offices and upgraded facilities for the entire police staff.  

Feasibility study: ‘A tool for local officials’

Dobbins described a feasibility study as “an in-depth review that helps a township or municipality decide whether a proposed project or initiative is practical and worthwhile.”

“It really serves as a tool for local officials and the community to use when considering whether to move forward with the project,” she said, referring to images presented at the open house that compared diagrams of the concept floor plan for new facility against the current configuration of the police department offices, located on the second floor of the Township Building.

Those varying scenarios were front and center at the township’s open house – which included tours of the current offices. Otteni said the tours were “very beneficial, because they allowed people to see how a lot of the staff is sitting on top of each other, and how the police station serves as a make-shift facility and lacks adequate police functions that you would normally find at police stations.

“There’s no prisoner processing area,” he said. “The holding cell is basically a converted bathroom. There is no reception [area] in any way, shape or form for people who come to see the police.”

Responses to comments and concerns

One of residents’ leading questions about the proposed new police facility is about whether the township needs one, said Dobbins. The workload of police unit should not just be measured by the number of arrests it makes, but the ancillary tasks it does that are often reflected in call volume. The township’s police unit took in 980 calls this past March, an average of 30 a day.

“What is not reflected in the call data are things like the hours of training, the paperwork, and the 73 linear miles of road that are patrolled in this township,” she said. “Another thing that happens is that a crime can occur in Kennett township, but the arrest may happen outside of the township, so just looking at the data doesn’t necessarily paint the picture of how busy our police department is.”

Because Kennett Township’s seniors make up 27 percent of its entire population – much larger than other populations - Dobbins said a lot of the department’s focus is on dealing with the increasing number of fraud incidents perpetuated against this population.

“There is also a lot of time invested in community policing such as regulating speed controls and the running of stop signs,” Otteni said. “Just their presence helps to bring down speeds in some of our neighborhoods. I don’t know how we would address that without being able to mobilize our officers to some of those concerns.”

Another option suggested by the public, Dobbins said, is to regionalize the existing department with other area units, similar to how the Southern Chester County Regional Police Department has combined the former West Grove Borough and New Garden Township police departments.

One of the e-mails the township received about police regionalization referred to the Southern Armstrong Regional Police Department in Leechburg, Pa. – a ten-member squad that patrols nearly 7,000 residents across 19 square miles in two boroughs and one township. In comparison, Dobbins said that combined, the three communities don’t total the number of residents that Kennett Township has in a smaller square milage.

“Essentially, with ten officers covering about 7,000 residents, they are not dissimilar to what Kennett Township already has,” she said. 

‘Penny-wise and pound-foolish’

Another suggestion raised by residents was that the township should save money by creating a smaller footprint for its police department than the proposed 11,500-square-foot facility, a recommendation that seems ironic, given that the supervisors voted down one option to develop a 17,000-square-foot building in August.

“Kennett Township Chief Matt Gordon and I looked at the [17,000 square-foot design] and said, ‘We’re still just a rural community. We don’t need 17,000 square feet of space for our police department,” Otteni said. “Now that we’ve gotten the size of our building down to 11,500 square feet, we’re still going to look for ways to be cost effective with our design, but we don’t want to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, so that we’re standing here in eight years and saying that the current building does not meet our needs.

“We’re building this thing for the next 25 years.”

Otteni said that the proposed new facility incorporates all the necessary requirements for a modern police department which, he said, accounts for much of its square footage: a reception area, locker rooms, prisoner processing space, evidence storage and a sally port.

“These are all areas that do not exist at Kennett Township’s police department, and by the time you build the minimum-size [additions] onto a plan like this, you’re already pushing that 11,500 square feet, so there’s not a lot of room to pare back, but there is the understanding that we’re going to try.

“This will be within the means of the township, cost-effective and yet professional and thorough.”

Otteni and Dobbins also addressed two other citizen-generated alternatives – renting space in another part of the township or occupying the historic Fussell House – also known as the “Pines” – that the township refurbished several years ago.

“We did look at renting, but renting is not sustainable,” Otteni said. “We’d be paying rent every month, paying for upgrades, and if we get kicked out, we’d have to find someplace else.

Otteni said that he measured every room at the Fussell House, but said that it was ill-equipped to host a modern-day police department.

“The Pines has allocated three parking spaces,” he said. “When I looked at it, it was too small even for the 11 staff members we have. It would not be able to house the staff in conjunction with what you would want in a professional building. You wouldn’t have conference rooms, adequate restrooms, no place for storage, and there is no way to get ADA access to the second floor.

“We vetted it, and it just doesn’t work as a modern-day administration building.”

The township continues to field concerns about the estimated cost of the proposed new building, and several have held the $10 million cost against the price that other townships have paid for their police stations. It’s an inaccurate comparison, he said. For instance, comparisons have been made to the Willistown Township police station, which cost $3.2 million but was constructed in 2014. Another comparison was made to the Pa. State police facility in Trevose, which cost $2.8 million but was built in 2004.

“We can’t be comparing [the proposed police building] to something that was done 22 years ago,” Otteni said. “In the last six to eight years, construction costs have gone up 30 to 40 percent.”

One township resident at the meeting said that construction of the proposed new building will have “a huge burden” on township residents.

“What this police department has grown to over the lats ten or 15 years is ridiculous – totally ridiculous - and now you’re going to give them a bigger building that we’re going to have to fill with more officers and more stuff?” he asked. “Where do we draw the line?”

The estimated $10 million cost of the new facility will include design and engineering, construction, furnishings and fit outs, as well as contingency and escalation costs. In order to finance it, the township plans to use $2 million of its existing funds, establish a 25-year bond for $8 million – paid out at between $500,000-$655,000 annually - and consider raising the township’s per household property taxes by $152 a year, based on a 2025 average assessed value. 

No final decisions about the proposed new building have been reached by the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors, and the township will continue to provide opportunities for township residents to provide public input. 

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].