BRILLIANT — Before year’s end, the Wells Township Police Department will have officially moved into a new facility, one that Police Chief Sean Norman believes will meet the department’s operational needs and provide a central location for township functions.

Renovations have been underway for about a year on part of the former Buckeye North Elementary School building. The police department will occupy about a third of the 30,000 square feet on the first floor.

In addition to providing offices for Wells Township’s secretary and fiscal officer, the finished space will house the police department in what used to be the school principal’s and nurse’s offices, which have been combined.

The department will have four workstations in the office, which will be connected to a yet-to-be constructed garage. Meant to house the department’s cruisers, the garage is being financed through a $159,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Everything in the space will have controlled access with levels of clearance granted through key fobs, explained Norman, who will execute his duties from among the other officers, in lieu of having his own office.

Embellishing the department office’s wall will be a quote from Arlington, Texas, Police Department Assistant Chief Will Johnson: “What have I done today in this encounter, on this traffic stop, on this call to earn the right to police this community?”

“When I saw that (quote), it gave me goosebumps because that’s why we’re here,” Norman said.

The department will utilize a new evidence room with three layers of controlled access for evidence integrity, a break room with a full kitchen and a dedicated interview room. Equipped with four cameras and a microphone, the interview room is capable of 24/7 recording — writing onto a hard drive when activated by a light switch — and recordings can then be forwarded to the county courts or prosecutor’s office.

Although still being renovated, the building has already allowed the department to host trainings that wouldn’t have been possible in

Facilities are expected to be complete by October, a deadline that Norman said is dependent on when contractors can be scheduled for sequential work.

The new amenities will “give officers the tools they need to effectively serve the community,” Norman said, adding that the new space will relieve the department of ongoing frustrations stemming from a lack of space for growth.

The Wells Township Police Department — which consists of six full-time officers, including a school resource officer, and multiple part-timers — is currently based in a former schoolhouse on Brilliant’s northern end.

Constructed in the 1890s, the schoolhouse is not the most conducive for modern police department operations, Norman said. For example, the space has limited workstations and power outlets and no key fob system. There is no dedicated interview room, meaning interviews must be conducted in the Wells Township Board of Trustees’ chambers.

Efforts toward renovating the old Buckeye North Elementary School for police department and township use began around 2022, when an individual with the Buckeye Local Board of Education notified the trustees that the building was available, according to Trustee Ben Batenburg.

Trustees toured the building, which was constructed in 1965, and found it to be in surprisingly good shape for having seen a decade of no use, Batenburg said.

The trustees developed an in-kind agreement with the school district, whereby the former would receive the building and adjacent football field in exchange for refurbishing the current Buckeye North Elementary School bus garage, building a new storage shed, paying to survey the roughly 7 acre-property and tearing down the field’s old grandstands — work that amounted to about $20,000 in total.

“The Buckeye Local school board has been very, very gracious to us, and I can’t say enough thanking them for all their support,” Batenburg said, adding that the township has agreed to let students use the football field for recess.

Subsequent renovations have been funded through local tax revenue, partially sourced form the police and recreation levies, Batenburg said, though most comes from the township’s general fund. The township has tried to keep some work in-house to cut back on costs.

First to move into the renovated building will be the police department, though Batenburg said township government as a whole will eventually sell its old building make the move to “consolidate everything in one place” and create an all-inclusive departmental and record-keeping space.

A major advantage of the new building is its proximity to the fire department, Batenburg said.

“We’re within 200 yards of the fire department, EMS,” he said. “If something were to happen, we’re right here located in this central part, and that makes everything work. We’re not a mile away; we’re not out of sight.”

Batenburg and Norman noted that proximity to the current elementary school is crucial. A line of communication will be maintained between the school and police department in case of an emergency, providing for immediate response.

The new building’s 10,000-square-foot gymnasium will, hopefully, serve as an indoor recreational center for local youth, Batenburg said, and it will host trustee meetings once its stage is replaced, as well as wedding receptions and graduation parties. Additionally, the gymnasium has been designated by the Jefferson County Board of Elections as the Wells Township precinct’s polling station.

Norman credited Batenburg’s vision for winning him over on the new building. That vision foresees the structure as a business and community hub, leveraging new interstate traffic from the Wellsburg-Brilliant bridge to create a center for economic opportunity.

In addition to the Brilliant and Wells Township Historical Museum that recently moved in, several businesses have expressed interest in occupying the remaining 50,000 square feet of developable space, Batenburg noted. One of those businesses is a health care provider that is seeking to establish a daycare center.

The possibilities for development are vast, Batenburg said, adding that the first floor is handicap accessible. To him, filling out the community hub is an investment in the next generation.

“I looked at this not as something that is so much for me, but it’s for my grandchildren and the people in the future,” Batenburg said. “We can’t live in the past. We have to look for tomorrow and say, ‘What’s good for the whole community 10 years from now?'”

Batenburg noted that state Sen. Brian Chavez, R-Marietta, recently visited building and was impressed, saying he would look into state-level grants to support the project.

Wells Township’s police officers have been surviving in their current location, Norman noted, so waiting some more time for renovations to be complete won’t be impossible. When that transition period begins, Batenburg added, the aim is to be seamless.

Whether it’s the oncoming police improvements or longterm community benefits, the building’s potential is great, and time will tell how the community of Wells Township will evolve to suit its new accommodations.