Regina Police looking for larger HQ, STC depot a possibility

Regina Police Service (RPS) is looking to move into a bigger building.

It has begun discussions with the City of Regina to consider what is best for the future and what options are available.

“We need to try and determine if there is a location in the city that would work for a new build or does our current location, with some modifications and changes, give us and afford us what we need in terms of size and capacity, now and into the future,” Regina police Chief Evan Bray told Gormley Monday.

One of those options is the STC depot across the street from their current headquarters. The government closed the provincial bus company in May and the building has been mostly unused since the end of September.

However, the RPS may not have solved the case just yet.

“That building, in conjunction with the building we have, still leaves us almost 40,000 square feet short of what we need,” Bray explained.

It also rests on the province selling the building, a tender process for which just ended at the beginning of October.

The RPS has certainly outgrown its current headquarters which is just east of downtown Regina.

There are various departments housed in seven buildings spread out across the city.

“Our challenge is right now we’re fractured, we’ve got people in different parts of the city and it’s not really conducive to business or to information sharing and efficiency as well,” Bray said.

Finances will also be a challenge for any RPS move to go ahead. Both the province and city have been number-crunching and there is less money to go around, something that will be a consideration in the discussions underway.

Bray maintained there is no time limit on those discussions but a decision will have to be made eventually.

Saskatoon Police Service opened its new downtown HQ in 2014.