Laurel Police Dept. plans to renovate historic school

LAUREL, Del. – The Laurel Police Department is working on plans to move into the old Dunbar Elementary School.

Laurel’s Police Chief tells 47 ABC that their department has grown and they simply need more space. They have 20 officers on their staff and want to convert about a third of the old school into a new police department. The town’s mayor says the biggest hurdle they have to get past is getting the almost $2 million to renovate the old historic school building.

“That’s a large amount of money by anybody’s budget. So the chief and the town manager have been working very hard to see if we can get some grants for different organizations and I think there’s some fairly good potential for that,” says Laurel’s Mayor John Shwed.

The mayor tells 47 ABC he expects it to take about 2 years to get all the funding.

Laurel’s Police Chief tells 47 ABC he’s happy the town isn’t planning to raise taxes to pay for the renovations. He also says they hope to create a community room in the school, that organizations can use, which could also help foster a good relationship between the community and police.