Riley Construction Company: From diamond in the rough to gold standard

Contact:

Scott Gurholt

Riley Construction Company

262-658-4381

scottg@rileycon.com

Skokie’s New Police Headquarters Reinvigorates Blighted Building to Modern Law Enforcement Facility

KENOSHA, Wis. – What once stood as an eyesore along one of the busiest corridors in Skokie, Ill., is now a gleaming example of urban renewal and modern symbol of law and order in this community of over 66,000 residents.

The Skokie Police Department recently moved into their new headquarters, which is comprised of 79,300 square feet carved out of a dilapidated 136,000-square-foot former Pepsi warehouse. The $30 million project, five years in the making, was designed by SRBL Architects and construction was led by Riley Construction. The project is registered for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification status, with the upper echelon gold certification the goal.

The new police station incorporates abundant natural daylight and comfort amenities, such as two open air courtyards complete with gas grills, locker rooms with high-end finishes and a workout facility featuring the latest fitness equipment. It also offers ample parking with 35 indoor and 34 outdoor covered parking spaces with room for growth for the Department’s current 40+ vehicles.

An on-site centralized 911 dispatch/emergency operations center is responsible for receiving, processing and dispatching emergency and non-emergency calls to police, fire, EMS and other service departments. It is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by four certified emergency medical dispatch employees.

The station houses a modernized evidence processing, packaging and storage department. Equipment includes a fuming chamber for the development of latent (present but not necessarily visible) fingerprints, drying cabinet for the safe drying of biological evidence and a forensic light room for evidence examination. All evidence is tracked and stored on-site in updated high-density storage systems for long-term, sometimes indefinite, evidence storage.

The training room has a capacity of 180 persons and is outfitted with state-of-the-art multimedia equipment including large high definition flat panel monitors, a nine-by-seven-foot projection screen and digital audio equipment all linked into eight simultaneous media feeds. Additional meeting rooms throughout the station feature similar audio/visual amenities linked to the media feeds.

Firearms training consist of a virtual firearms training room and an indoor live firing range. The virtual firearms training room features a 300-degree digital environment that provides real-life, scenario-based training for officers. Skokie Police received federal funding for this system and it is the only municipally-owned system in Illinois. The live firearms range is 32 feet wide to allow for additional scenario-based training that can include a vehicle and lateral target movement.

The detention facility includes 14 detention rooms, three interrogation rooms and one mass holding room. It features a two-bay sallyport for secure entry and exit of detainees from squad cars.

As the project seeks its LEED-Gold status, many green and sustainable considerations are evidenced throughout the project. Extensive reuse of the existing building and locally-sourced building materials greatly reduced the carbon dioxide emissions and energy required for transportation. Over 82% of construction waste was recycled and 28% of new building materials contain recycled content. Building energy efficiency initiatives are expected to result in over 25% reduction in energy usage. Water efficiency benchmarks include a nearly 50% reduction potable water usage and cisterns located in the indoor courtyards store rainwater to be used for irrigating the six acre site.

About Riley Construction

One of the largest construction management and general construction firms in northern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin, averaging more than $107 million in annual volume, Riley Construction is headquartered in Kenosha, Wis., with permanent offices located in Milwaukee and Lake Bluff, Ill. As one of the leading construction services firms in the region, Riley Construction was recently ranked among the top Midwest companies by Midwest Construction magazine, including no. 11 in Government Building construction in 2010. Riley Construction provides construction management, preconstruction, design/build and general contracting services across a wide range of markets, including health care, municipal, commercial, industrial, public/recreation and education. Projects include new, expansion, renovation and restoration projects for a variety of building types and uses.