New police station to help train officers across West Virginia

ST. ALBANS, W.Va. (WSAZ) - With city leaders and the community on hand, St. Albans opened up its brand-new police station for the public to tour.

The new station is more than fifteen times bigger than the previous station.

The new station provides space Police Chief Marc Gilbert said the department desperately needed.

“When you have 25 to 26 officers working out of 1000 square feet, the space just isn’t there for us,” he said.

St. Albans Mayor Scott James said the new location was once a bank, and by building at 613 MacCorkle avenue, they’ve saved millions of dollars.

“We got to 16,500 square foot building for $1.9 million,” James said. “If you were to build that from the ground up, it’d be probably seven or $8 million.”

With the building finished, Gilbert is confident they’ll be able to better serve the community.

“We have more capabilities now,” Gilbert said. “We have more room to expand. The location is a big change. We’re now located on a four-lane highway, so our response times should be quicker.”

The station is equipped with new meeting rooms, and equipment, but it’s a new training room that Gilbert said will create new relationships with other police departments.

“We can invite instructors now to the St. Albans police department,” he said. Our officers will get trained in-house as well as officers from agencies around the state.”

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