The Elkhart Police and Fire Department and the dispatch center will be moving to the old Bayer site.
The council allocated $3.4 million Monday Night to purchase the Bayer site and adapt it to the needs of fire, police and dispatch.
Elkhart Police Chief Chris Snyder said they’ve outgrown their space. “We’ve done everything we can to adapt this building to what our needs have been during that time. Our needs now just exceed what the four walls here give us.”
Snyder said having police, fire and dispatch in the same space will help with communications between the departments, especially during emergencies like the flood in 2018.
The Public Safety Center will also include spaces for training that Snyder said will bring other departments to Elkhart.
The fire station will continue to be used as a fire house. Snyder said the city is not sure yet whether it will repurpose the police and dispatch buildings or sell them.
Design work for the new space will be done over the winter and construction is expected to begin in the spring.