Nixa plans 2025 groundbreaking for $15M police HQ

Joe Campbell: Sales tax collection for 2024 may fall short of projections.

Summer Lampe: Xtreme Exteriors is building a new HQ near the future police facility.

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Currently in the design phase, a multimillion-dollar city of Nixa project to build a new Police Department headquarters is projected for a mid-2026 opening, according to officials.

The timeline for the project is dependent on multiple factors, including selection of a general contractor, said Nixa Police Chief Joe Campbell. He said the city plans to solicit construction bids in early 2025, which will likely be followed by a spring groundbreaking for the 22,000-square-foot facility. It will more than double the footprint of its 10,500-square-foot longtime headquarters at 715 W. Center Circle.

Insight Design Architects LLC and Brentwood-based Chiodini Architects are designing the project, said Summer Rascoll, director of communications for the city of Nixa, adding the budget is estimated at roughly $15 million.

Campbell said construction is projected at 12-14 months, noting the project was able to move forward based upon the city in September purchasing roughly five acres at Leann Drive and Highway 14 for $155,000.

Xtreme Property Holdings LLC was the seller of the property, which is located just east of Victory Baptist Church. The company is owned by Hunter and Summer Lampe, who also co-own Nixa-based residential and commercial contractor Xtreme Exteriors Roofing & Siding LLC.

“The city administrator [Jimmy Liles] negotiated for that piece of property, and we were able to get it for what I would consider as an extreme value,” Campbell said. “It’s not prime real estate right on frontage, so it was more economical for us. Moving forward, it made perfect financial sense to go ahead and buy that piece of property and have plenty of room for expansion.”

Summer Lampe said she and her husband were approached by the city about purchasing a portion of the 19 acres Xtreme Property Holdings owns. The station is planned to be built on the north end of the parcel.

“Hunter and I both thought it would be a great idea,” she said via email. “Our thought was we would be helping the Police Department out with finding a great location to serve our community. Their current spot is just not enough space.”

Xtreme Exteriors also is involved in a construction project in Nixa after breaking ground last month on a $2.6 million, 13,000-square-foot headquarters at 1351 W. Mount Vernon St., according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. The property, which sits south of Victory Baptist near the intersection with Nicholas Road, also will serve as a showroom for the company.

Lampe said the couple maintains ownership of the remaining 14 acres not owned by the city for potential future development.

Funding foundation
City officials say the new Police Department headquarters will be funded through a three-quarter-cent sales tax passed in April 2023. Nixa voters in 2022 rejected a 1-cent general sales tax that, in part, would have paid for a new $13 million, three-story police headquarters at a separate city-owned site. That project also sought to fund a $25 million, 80,000-square-foot indoor sports complex for the Nixa Parks & Recreation Department, according to past reporting. Roughly 52% of voters opposed the tax.

Campbell acknowledged it was a quick pivot from the tax defeat in November 2022 to put it back before voters months later.

But the move paid off as around 60% of voters supported the measure, which officials said will replace the department’s home since the early 1990s.

“We really listened to what the public was saying as far as feedback and their appetite for funding certain types of projects with the city. What we found was there was support for the Police Department and needs that we were presenting, and there was a little less support for the project with the Parks Department,” he said. “Just hearing that, we knew we probably just need to split those out and make them separate requests. That’s how we were able to get that passed.”

Officials say the park’s sports complex proposal will be revisited at a yet-to-be-determined date.

Since the tax’s passage, Campbell said the Police Department has added six officers. It’s a move the city was unable to do for the previous three years before 2023, due to budgetary constraints.

The department employs 53 commissioned police officers and a total staff of 60, he said.

“I commonly use the phrase of how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And so that’s the approach that we take with personnel,” he said, adding the department still has several openings it seeks to fill for the 2025 budget.

Last year’s departmental operating budget was $6.3 million, according to its 2023 annual report.

If the tax hadn’t passed last year, Campbell said budget cuts to the Police Department were not only possible, but probable.

“Quite frankly, we had fallen behind and we were in need of hiring several staff just to meet the demand and the calls for service,” he said. “We just knew that if it hadn’t passed, we were looking at squeezing more out of less with the building and the facility.”

According to the annual report, calls for service in 2023 were 40,001, an 11% year-over-year increase.

Originally projecting the tax would bring in around $3.1 million for 2024, city officials say the total may fall short of that mark. Campbell said tax revenue was over $2.3 million at the start of October, but added collections have increased as the year has continued.

Spreading out
A 20-year veteran of the Police Department, Campbell said he’s well aware of the current facility’s space constraints. A needs assessment completed in 2022 by Insight Design Architects projected the department needed a roughly 20,000-22,000-square-foot facility to properly accommodate the personnel size it needed.

“Over the last 20 years, we’ve actually doubled in size with the number of personnel working out of this facility,” he said. “I had officers working with two to three in an office. Our crime prevention officer, he’s working out of what was actually a closet at one time.”

While the project calls for a single-story structure rather than the original three-story plan, Campbell said if needs arise there will be room for expansion on the back portion of the building.

“We’re just trying to be very cognizant about spending the money properly so that we’re not in a situation where in a couple years we’re out of space again,” he said.