Bonneville Sheriff’s Office breaks ground on new annex
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AMMON — A soon-to-be-build built Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office’s annex promises to improve emergency response time for local law enforcement.
The Bonneville County Commission and Sheriff’s Office broke ground on the site of the new Ammon Field Office on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
The two-acre development, located at the 3700 block of East Lincoln Road, will be home to a 14,000 square-foot annex building.
“About 80 percent of our calls are from Hitt Road east,” Bonneville Sheriff Paul Wilde said. “This is an effort to put officers in the area … closer to where the action is to better serve the community.”
The city of Ammon contracts with the sheriff’s office to serve as its municipal law enforcement.
The Ammon Field Office, slated to be complete in spring 2016, won’t be a manned 24-hour station at first, Wilde said.
It will mainly offer a physical location for officers to conduct investigations, do field work or rest, without the need to travel back to the central office in Idaho Falls. The annex will include offices, interview rooms, reporting rooms, showers, a workout room and significant storage area for large equipment such as boats or snow mobiles.
Eventually, Wilde said he can see officers directly working out of the office.
Wilde said his office has been saving money for several years to finance the expansion.
The sheriff’s office, working with Bonneville County, paid about $100,000 for one acre of the property, county officials said. The other acre was donated by Riverbend Holdings and owners Frank and Belinda VanderSloot, who own the property along East Lincoln Road.
Riverbend Holdings General Manager Jim Dalton said the VanderSloots were pleased to play a part in the opening of the Ammon Field Office.
“We think this is an ideal position for the field office … and will serve as an anchor for future development in the area,” Dalton said during the ceremony.
Over the next two to three years, Riverbend Holdings hopes to grow the area into a mixed retail development, incorporating a possible grocery story and other businesses.
Disclosure: EastIdahoNews.com is owned and operated by Riverbend Communications, a branch of Riverbend Holdings.