With Prineville’s new City Hall near completion, city officials have shifted their focus to upgrading the current City Hall for a police department expansion.

The Prineville Police Department is currently located at the back of the City Hall building, occupying about 4,500 square feet, said Police Chief Eric Bush. Once the city administration moves to its new home across the street, the police department will take over the current City Hall building in a move that would double its space.

But city officials have scaled back original plans to overhaul the current City Hall for the police department because cost estimates show that the price tag could be at least $1.2 million.

Instead, the city plans to modestly upgrade the building to give the police department more elbow room until the city finds a permanent solution, said Prineville City Manager Robb Corbett. The improvements are currently estimated at $100,000 to $200,000.

Corbett said the city had originally budgeted the police department remodel at roughly $700,000, but rising constructions costs drove the price past the million-dollar mark.

The city is already spending about $2 million to build its new City Hall. The future of the county jail, which is located at the police department, could also change, Corbett said, making the city question the soundness of investing $1.2 million to remodel the aging building.

”My first thought was we can build a new building with $1.2 million,” Corbett said. ”We thought there were things we can do in the short term to give us time to figure out a long-term solution.”

Corbett would not say if long-term plans would mean a new police department building one day.

Bush, the police chief, said the stop-gap measure would give the police department more offices and a bigger briefing room.

The front of City Hall will become the new entrance to the police department. Walls will be added for security, such as one that will close off the front reception counter from public access. The phone system also will be replaced.

But the upgrades won’t take care of the aging facilities or a floor plan that is inefficient for a police department, Bush said.

”It’s like a car. We can drive a 1953 Oldsmobile forever,” Bush said, referring to the 1950s City Hall building. ”It just becomes less and less efficient as time goes on. We need to put in more money to keep it running.”

Bush said the police department has needed more space for at least the past decade. The police department currently has 17 full-time officers and a part-time ordinance officer, as well as a handful of administrative staff.

The Crook County Sheriff’s Office, which operates the jail, also eliminated eight of its 25 jail beds last year in anticipation of the remodel. The Sheriff’s Office plans to rent more beds at the Jefferson County Jail to make up the loss.

The remodeling could have added another 15 to 20 years of life to the building, but the scaled-back plans may only buy the police department another three to five years, Bush said.

”We’re doing the best with what we have,” Bush said.