Tour Easton’s new, nearly $8M police station–

Barring any issues during a Friday morning codes inspection, the city of Easton will formally buy its new police station during a 2 p.m. settlement conference that day, Mayor Sal Panto Jr. said during a Thursday morning tour of the nearly complete facility.

The combination of reworked sections of the old Express-Times building and three stories of new construction in a parking lot next to 30 N. Fourth St. is pretty much everything the current retrofitted station at 25 S. Third St. isn’t.

The bottom line will be nearly $8 million — more than the original estimate just north of $7 million, officials said. But that includes redesigning the firing range into a tactical room that isn’t limited to straight-on gunfire, and the addition of covered parking along the north side for 29 police vehicles, Panto and police Chief Carl Scazo said.

The department hopes to be in by early October, Scalzo said.

“This has worked out really well for the city,” Panto said, saluting Lou Pektor’s Ashley Development, Longview Construction and Alloy5, which designed the exterior.

It was remarkable that the settlement would happen within two days of the original plan after a fire on the roof earlier this year set back construction “five or six weeks” due to all the duct work in the new building having to be replaced, Panto said.

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