OVIEDO, Fla. \u2014 Renovations on the City of Oviedo\u2019s Police Department headquarters continue to move forward.<\/p>\n
The city council received an update Wednesday, as the project reached the 60% mark for its construction design documents.<\/p>\n
But looming over it all is a million-dollar deficit in funding for it.<\/p>\n
Still, after 20 years of work and setbacks, Oviedo is a step closer to starting construction on the renovation and expansion of the police building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project actually started in 2006 in the first study, and then we did a bond issue in 2017, and here we are in 2026 and we\u2019re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d said Oviedo Police Chief Dale Coleman. \u201cAnd once I see a shovel in the ground, I know it will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman has worked with contractor H.J. High Construction on the design of the building, which was showcased at Wednesday\u2019s city workshop.<\/p>\n
The outside renderings show the plans, which include improvements to the existing building, plus a brand-new annex and a courtyard near the entrance.<\/p>\n
As of now, the city hopes to get final construction documents and work on permits by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
The entire project is expected to take about two years. It\u2019s a lengthy process that Coleman said he hopes stays on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to put it into perspective,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got the bond issue passed in 2017, so two years more is longer than I wanted to wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think if we keep at this pace and we\u2019ll probably be ahead of schedule, and I have full confidence in the contractor that it won\u2019t be any longer than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are still some questions when it comes to the price tag.<\/p>\n
The total project is slated to cost about $18.2 million, which is about $1.2 million more than the city\u2019s budgeted expense.<\/p>\n
City officials said the project is crucial. And since voters approved the funding, Mayor Megan Sladek said she believes there\u2019s a way to make the numbers work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did ask, once the sales tax was renewed and went out for a vote, for this to be one of the projects,\u201d Sladek said. \u201cSo, that is probably the lowest hanging fruit and the most sensible place to draw from.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is some concern, though, about future funding for the department, especially with state lawmakers set to consider property tax reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t really have a way necessarily to fund the operational costs of continuing to fill it with police officers,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m very concerned about what that looks like in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OVIEDO, Fla. \u2014 Renovations on the City of Oviedo\u2019s Police Department headquarters continue to move forward. The city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[274,14105,2287,115,139,141,140,277,1014,278],"class_list":["post-287327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-top-stories","tag-brandon-spencer","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-public-safety","tag-seminole-county","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}