East Peoria city and police department officials broke ground Friday for construction of the new police station on Camp Street.
The event followed the City Council's action Tuesday that locked in a $21.6 million maximum construction cost on the project. The design for two-story station has 41,000 square feet of "functional space" with a range of features lacking from the current location in the city’s public safety building.
“We’ve never had any space to bring our community members into the police department,” said Police Chief David Catton. “We couldn’t entertain. We couldn’t have meetings. We couldn’t have academies. We couldn’t do nothing.”
The new station’s plans have a dedicated community room. There’s also a crime lab for officers to work in, something Catton says was impossible previously because there was no room to safely store equipment.
“That’s probably the best part, is there’s going to be a lot of safety with it,” said Catton. “And the officers can do their job more effectively and efficiently and safely.”
The benefits of the new police station don’t stop at the front door. Catton says the location on Camp Street, just across the street from East Peoria’s bustling Levee District, is ideal. For example, a railroad crossing no longer sits directly in the path of where responding police cars may be headed.
“We wanted the public to see that we’re here and we wanted our retailers to know that we’re here, too,” said Catton. “So being right across from the Levee District is a huge step and it’s definitely going to be a prominent place that you’ll be able to know we’re here.”
Mayor John Kahl says, by the time construction is finished, the project will cost the city upwards of $24 million or $25 million altogether, factoring in additional costs like architectural services. That comes from budgeted capital funds and a repaid loan from the Blutowne Apartments construction project.
“We view public safety as a top priority. We take it very seriously. We don’t apologize for that,” said Kahl. “And this is really a testament of that. And I think when this project wraps up and this building’s open, it’ll be a sense of pride for everybody.”
Construction is expected to wrap up in the summer of 2026.
