Hatboro Devises Plan for Facilities Upgrades

Hatboro hopes to expand its public works and police space and renovate portions of borough hall within the next three to five years. 

While numerous moving parts are in play as part of the estimated $2.8 million plan to upgrade and expand borough-owned facilities, the Hatboro Borough Council, during a special meeting on Monday, outlined the best courses of action for what Council President John Zygmont described as a “plan of attack.”

“We let it sit long enough,” Zygmont said of recommendations that a consultant presented back in February, which call for a public works annex to be built on a portion of Eaton Park, among other suggestions.

The public works annex and a park amphitheater, tallying a projected $965,000, are to be tackled first, officials decided Monday. More on that project can be found here. 

Fixing Hatboro’s Police Department building

After that, spending a projected $1.1 million to renovate the existing Hatboro Police Department, including the addition of a sally port to bring prisoners in and out of the building, is the next priority, officials said.

Without increasing the size of the roughly 60-year-old police station, Zygmont said the improvements would double the available square footage, in large part because the existing public works storage would be removed.

Hatboro Police Chief James Gardner said that, based on conceptual drawings, “there’s enough room there to make something work.”

“You have the square footage here,” Gardner told the council. “The individual parts that you need for a police station are here.”

A previous council had received a recommendation in 2011 to demolish the police building and construct a new station at a cost of $2.2 million. In February, Thomas J. Comitta, of town planners and landscape architect firm Thomas Comitta Associates Inc., told Patch that his suggestion to renovate rather than replace the police station would carry a roughly 30-year life.

Public works upgrades planned

Besides the planned public works annex at Eaton Park, Hatboro officials are considering spending about $575,000–$1.3 million for both public works projects–to provide additional work areas on the first and second floors of the existing public works building on Oakdale Avenue.

Additional bathrooms, including a women’s bathroom, are also planned. 

Zygmont, in trying to pare down the costs and spread them out over time, asked if additional bathrooms were necessary.

“There’s only one restroom,” Zollers said, adding that the building does not have a women's bathroom and that public works crews need space to clean up and change their clothes after tasks involving dirt and chemicals. “For the employee safety, I think that’s probably the most necessary.” 

Zygmont suggested that the public works upgrades at the Oakdale Avenue building be carried out sometime following the work at Eaton Park and at the police station.

Upgrades to borough hall

Aside from an outdated HVAC system, which Councilman Bob Hegele said would not last the three to four years until renovations could be carried out, officials agreed that the projected $140,000 to reconfigure administrative offices and add general office space in borough hall could wait until all other projects were completed.

“You basically need heating and air-conditioning functions, a reconfiguration of office space to make the work flow better,” Zygmont said.

The council meeting room would have a retractable divider put in to break the room into two smaller conference rooms, he said, adding that a small conference room would be added to the office area.

“It’s not that we don’t use this for a conference room, it’s the time we have multiple things going on at the same time,” Zollers said of the council room. “Lots of times it would work out better if we had a smaller room to operate in.” 

Hatboro Mayor Norm Hawkes said that while “not for me personally,” he would “like to see the mayor of Hatboro have an office somewhere.”

A mayor's office is not included in the plans, Zygmont told Patch.

The second floor, at least until District Judge Paul Leo relocates, is not a high priority for upgrades, Zygmont said. Leo’s moves to the borough hall annex adjacent to the municipal building this fall “opens up the possibility of leasing out the entire second floor,” according to Zygmont.