OCEAN CITY, Md.- It's not just a parking lot, it's hope for better.
Ashley Miller, Deputy Communications Manager for the Ocean City Police Department said the new facility would be an asset, "It will be a great community engagement tool, it's going to bring us in one central location for everybody to be able to find us."
The town of Ocean City, and the Ocean City Development Corporation have proposed to bring a police substation to Somerset street.
Glenn Irwin the Executive Director at the Ocean City Development Corporation said, "Initially about having just the first floor dedicated to a much larger bicycle unit for OCPD they felt that they wanted more than that here."
The original cost when first proposed was 2.4 million dollars and the new cost of the project doubled to 4.2 million dollars.
But City Manager, Terry McGean says the reason is simple, "Not that the building got bigger it started at some drastically change is just we brought in a construction manager, someone who actually builds buildings, and they did a true estimate based on true costs."
The substation would be a place to store police bikes and house town employees but it will also provide public restrooms in a much needed area. Ravaugn Nichols who works in downtown Ocean City said, "Because we definitely need more places for a public place for people to go you know, use the bathroom because there's so many bars that don't let people use a bathroom you know, you got to spend money."
The town will have a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the different projects for the Capital Improvement Plan. The plan which decides which projects are the most needed to spend on for the fiscal year. If Somerset street is approved they hope to start building this year and be done by summer 2024.