By Gregory Childress

gchildress@heraldsun.com; 918-1046

CHAPEL HILL -- The town has decided against buying part of Dawson Hall on Weaver Dairy Road to house its police department, which has more than doubled in size since it occupied its current digs on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard 30 years ago.

Town Manager Roger Stancil said Thursday that there were simply too many hurdles to overcome and too little time to make the deal work.

"Our biggest concern was how we might put a police operation in the midst of private entities, who are our neighbor, and be a good neighbor," Stancil said.

The owner of the 70,000-square-foot commercial building, Red Wing Land, LLC, wanted to close the deal by the end of the year, which Stancil said didn't give the town ample time to work through some of its concerns.

Those concerns included parking for the Police Department's large fleet of cars, which would require reaching agreement with other occupants of the building, the need to add emergency power to the building, the effect of joint public safety operations with UNC and the ability to process prisoners.

"Although we don't operate a jail, sometimes the people who come to the Police Department are not always on their best behavior," Stancil said.

When the Police Department moved into the building it currently occupies, it had 72 employees. The department now employs roughly 150 people.

Stancil said he plans to put together a team to pursue other options for the Police, Fire and Parks and Recreation departments, all of which would have shared space in the Dawson building.

"We're going to put together a team of staff members to think about what our needs are and what our options are," said Stancil, who added that the town's preference is an existing building.

Staff also has been asked to:

n Report to Town Council in November on market and construction cost conditions related to the library project along with financing strategies that maximize the ability to borrow funds in the future for shared facilities for Parks and Recreation, Police and Fire departments.

n Explore short-term leasing options in Dawson Hall for temporary space for library operations while the library expansion is under construction.

Library services would have been housed in the Dawson building while the library's expansion project is under construction.