Two landlords are arguing over whether police should move a substation a block down Whalley Avenue.
At a Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills management team meeting Tuesday night, the district’s cops proposed the Whalley police substation move from 386 to 332 Whalley Ave., a building owned by business owner Pat Minore. The manager of the current building housing the substation — a block away at Whalley and Norton — is Eli Greer (pictured above). Greer called the move logistically inconvenient; he argued it would would ultimately decrease safety along the avenue.
The proposal started with the police department, said Lt. Makiem Miller, Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills (WEB) district manager. Police have outgrown the space and want newer utilities and larger community spaces, he said.
Miller and Chief Dean Esserman started the process in the last six to eight months, discussing the idea of moving with the district alders and Whalley Avenue Special District. To be thorough, they invited those two groups and both landlords to the management team meeting, “so no one would say, ‘They told you about it? How come they didn’t tell me about it?’” Miller said.
Four parking spaces at the back of the proposed site.
Greer is the property manager of Edgewood Corners, which owns the 386 Whalley property. He said the police department is better off in its current space, located in the middle of the district instead of at the edge. The proposed location has limited parking spaces and building entrances, which would affect the time it takes cops to get out to emergencies, he said.
But Miller said cops are not dispatched from substations — they use them mainly to store equipment, use the bathroom or attend community meetings between shifts. “When officers are at the substation, you would barely see two or three cars at the same time,” he said.
Caplan said management team members were given little notice to Tuesday’s discussion topic and few formal details about the proposal during the meeting. The community needs a formal proposal in writing, before it can form a reasoned collective opinion on whether to move, he said.
The main questions, he noted, are easy: “What are you going to get for your money if you move? Does the presence of the substation at a different location add value to the police presence?”
Management team member Chris Peralta said community members were “pretty neutral” about the proposal, since it is only in its beginning stages.
Greer said the police department currently pays about $1,200 in monthly rent for about 1,800 square feet of space.
The annual lease was up in July/ Now the police are paying month to month to use the space, Miller said.
Inside 332 Whalley Ave.
The proposed location, a former nightclub storefront run next to Minore’s Market by reggae DJ Third World George, is currently rundown and would need a significant amount of construction before it could house a substation. Minore said he would be willing to put $400,000 into renovating the entire building, before renting out the first floor to police for about the same rate they pay now. The first floor measures at about 2,500 square feet.
Minore said he does not know what he would do with the second and third floors; he suggested either residential or office space would work. The renovation would help decrease blight and increase development on Whalley, he said.
Minore said he offered the use of his meat market’s parking lot next door for police vehicles, since it is spacious and rarely at capacity. Having police cars visible in front of the building, instead of hidden at the back, would be a “big deterrent” of crime, Minore said.
The stretch of Whalley between Sherman and Winthrop is a hotspot for drug deals, loitering and prostitution complaints, Miller said.
Past district managers have suggested the police substation change locations, but never stayed long enough to make it happen. “There was not a lot of continuity,” said Caplan, who has been attending management team meetings for about 12 years, and was chair for three terms.
Ultimately, the decision will be made by the police department, Miller said.
Before that, he wants to disperse the information within the community, through as many means as possible. Ideally, construction would begin by the end of the year.