BEVERLY — For the first time since it opened in 1935, the Beverly police station was empty this weekend.
"It's kind of spooky," Lt. William Terry said on Saturday afternoon. "There's nobody in there."
As Terry spoke, he stood inside a 10-by-44-foot trailer in the parking lot next to the police station, behind City Hall. For at least the next month, the trailer will serve as the new public home of Beverly police while their aging station undergoes renovations.
Police moved into the trailer on Friday and began operating out of their temporary home on Saturday. The majority of the police and civilian staff will still work inside the station on weekdays, but any member of the public who has business with police will have to go to the white trailer out back.
Police have set up three desks inside the trailer for the dispatch staff, which includes the officer in charge, the dispatcher, and the "houseman," who books and checks on prisoners. Prisoners are still taken to the holding cell inside the station. A monitor in the trailer allows officers to keep an eye on the cell.
The 911 and dispatching equipment has been moved into the trailer, and computers and printers and telephones have all been hooked up. There's also a small desk against a side wall where members of the public can sit and fill out forms.
It's certainly not ideal. But it's also a measure of the sad state of the current station that, as Terry pointed out, there's more room in the trailer than in their regular dispatch area.
Patrolman Dan Brown highlighted another difference with the trailer: "It's clean," he said.
The police station has been called "a disgrace" by at least one public official, City Councilor Don Martin. It was built in 1935 as an annex to City Hall and was designed to accommodate 12 officers. There are now 74 people working in the same space.
Police say the leaking roof is causing structural damage to the building. The showers don't work, so an officer who gets pepper spray on him during a shift has to go home to clean up.
The city was awarded a $114,565 state grant for renovations, with a requirement that the city match those funds, bringing the total to about $230,000. The first phase of work will involve redesigning and updating the dispatch center, the area that greets the public when they enter the station.
In the meantime, all dispatch services are in the trailer. Terry said one problem with the trailer is the lack of privacy and the noise. Since it's one big open area, it's impossible to have a private conversation.
At one point on Saturday, a woman and her husband were complaining loudly about allegedly being overcharged for gas at a gas station. The conversation reverberated through the entire trailer.
Terry said they'll also have to work out how to accommodate a citizen who has business with the records department, for example. Will they take that person into the station, or will someone from the station come out to the trailer?
"It's a little bit more difficult dealing with the public," Terry said.
Some officers are worried that the public will assume a new police station is not needed now that renovations are being done. The renovations are considered only a temporary fix. The city has plans to build a new station next to the Cummings Center.
That could still be a long way off, however. For now, home for Beverly police is a white trailer in the parking lot.
