Work on Napier's new police station is expected to start within a month.
Replacing the 50-year-old, three-storey Station St building with a single-storey building, described by police as a "satellite" station and fronting Dalton St, it follows the well-advanced demolition of cells, vehicle garages and other outbuildings on the site.
Site excavation is scheduled to start in early April and a two-metres-high perimeter wall, which formerly supported Dalton St bus-stop sheltering will be removed as the new station is built. It is expected to be completed by December.
The Napier cell block closed late last year and Hastings is now the base for all custodial arrests in the two cities.
The Napier and Hastings stations, built in the early 1960s, will both be demolished as part of a project costing more than $24 million, including development of a multiple-floored Eastern District and Hawke's Bay area police headquarters in Hastings, at a cost of about $19 million. The cost of the Napier satellite station is put at more than $5 million.
