Mount Vernon officially broke ground Tuesday on a new 36,858-square-foot police headquarters along Sychar Road, marking the start of construction on a project city leaders have discussed for nearly three decades. The ceremonial event followed preliminary site work that began the week prior, and the facility is expected to be finished in the fourth quarter of 2027.
The groundbreaking, held August 4, came after physical earthmoving had already started on July 27, according to Pizzuti Solutions, the project's owner's representative. As reported by myfox28columbus.com, the new station is designed at 36,858 square feet, giving the department room it has lacked for decades. CK Construction is serving as construction manager at risk, while Boarman Kroos Vogel Group is the architect of record, with Jezerinac Geers handling structural engineering and Heapy managing mechanical and electrical systems.
The current headquarters, tucked inside the Plaza Building at 5 North Gay Street, dates back to around 1974 and has suffered from overcrowding and structural aging that city officials determined was unsafe for modern policing, per the same account. Renovating that aging building was deemed financially prohibitive by municipal planners, which is part of why the city opted to build new rather than retrofit the old site.
A Modern Campus Built for Consolidation
The new headquarters will sit on a nearly seven-acre campus at 71 Sychar Road, directly across from Hiawatha Water Park. The move lets Mount Vernon consolidate all of its police assets in one place and repurpose its current impound lot on Greenwood Avenue, eliminating a division of resources that had spread department operations across separate municipal properties.
Site prep for the new campus included land moves the city council authorized back in December, including acquiring a 0.333-acre parcel from Kno-Ho-Co-Ashland Community Action to make room for stormwater retention facilities. The building itself will house administrative offices, expanded evidence storage, classroom space, and defensive tactics training areas, along with a sallyport and an indoor firearms range that can double as a community emergency shelter, offering year-round scenario-based officer training while also serving as dual-use shelter capacity.
How the City Avoided a New Tax Levy
Financing the project required some creative timing. In March, the Mount Vernon City Council authorized issuing up to $29 million in Treasury Notes, structuring the debt so that older municipal bonds expiring in 2026 and 2029 — tied to prior projects like the water park and a bridge — will free up more than $1 million in annual debt service, according to Mount Vernon News. That structure was designed specifically to avoid triggering a new local tax levy.
State Senator Andrew Brenner had already secured a $2 million state grant for the project back in June 2024, drawn from Ohio's One-Time Strategic Community Investment Fund, with the city council formally accepting the grant that September following administrative transition steps. By July, value management engineering had trimmed the estimated total project cost from $29 million down to $26 million, according to Knox Pages. That savings let the city council fast-track an initial $6.05 million bid package covering site leveling, building demolition, and long-lead equipment orders — including backup generators that carry a 39-to-40 week delivery lead time.
Chief Cites Decades of Waiting
Mount Vernon Police Chief Robert Morgan, who has served with the department for 27 years, leads a force serving a municipal population of more than 16,000 residents in Knox County. Morgan has noted that city leaders had discussed replacing the aging headquarters for nearly three decades, a wait that finally ended with this week's groundbreaking.
With construction now underway, the department is looking at a fourth-quarter 2027 completion date for a facility built not just to fix overcrowding, but to add features the current 1974-era building was never designed to hold — from a dedicated sallyport to a firing range that can also shelter the community in an emergency.
