The potential fruition of these plans was revealed Monday during public comment in a village board meeting. The police department is currently at the historic Paul Smith’s Power and Light Company building at 1-3 Main St., the intersection of Main Street, Lake Street and Kiwassa Road, by the Saranac River.

Village Mayor Jimmy Williams said the village would not be renting the armory. The state owns the property and would allow the police to use it at no charge, but they would possibly split utilities costs.

The department still expects to move to a planned emergency services complex at 33 Petrova Ave. — a $27 million joint facility at the former St. Pius X high school for the police, fire and rescue squad. The project will take years to complete and has been contentious with neighbors of the site and some other village residents.

The police moving to the armory would just be until the complex is built, to open the 1-3 Main St. building for the potential APA move, Williams said.

The Saranac Lake Police Department is currently located in the back of 1-3 Main St. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Saranac Lake Police Chief Darin Perrotte said on Tuesday that he’s not sure what the status of the police department move is. He said the village manager and mayor were handling this. It’s a village decision, not one the chief would make.

Williams said village officials toured the facility around a year ago, and the state seemed willing to let the police use it. The village immediately filed a request and has been waiting for the state’s legal team to approve it ever since. He said he had waited to reveal this until they have a finalized agreement. The department move would also take a vote by the village board.

On Monday, village resident Mark Wilson, in asking trustees questions about the planned emergency services complex at 33 Petrova, asked if there was an update to previously discussed plans about moving the police to the armory.

Trustee Aurora White said nothing had been solidified, but she had heard about a potential move in October.

Village Manager Bachana Tsiklauri told the Enterprise on Tuesday that the village is waiting on final approval from the armory and hoping the police can move in there “asap.”

“We are hopeful that the moving process will start sometime in October,” he said in a text.

Williams said on Tuesday that it would be nice to move in October, but they can’t do that until there’s an agreement.

In the Monday meeting, Wilson was concerned about giving the public enough notice about the police station move, suggesting a month to let people adjust.

Trustees Matt Scollin and Sean Ryan said there should absolutely be enough notice given.

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The armory

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Perrotte said he doesn’t have anything on his schedule for a move but that he would be excited for it.

“I’m certainly open to anything that’s going to give us a better facility with better opportunities,” he said. “Right now, we’re kind of jammed into a small footprint and we’re limited on some of our capabilities.”

The department stores evidence and impounded vehicles off-site. It only has enough space to question one person at a time and only one bathroom.

Perrotte said he’s walked through the armory and believes the space can meet their needs.

The 20,785-square-foot armory, built in 1960, sits on a stretch of the state road called George LaPan Highway. It was used as an Army National Guard armory until 2016 when it was transferred to the state Office of General Services. Williams said it is currently being used for storage.

Tsiklauri said the armory will only need “very minor repairs” to be a police station and he’s waiting for quotes from the village’s technology office and Department of Public Works.

Some members of the public have opposed the police moving from their Main Street location, saying the police should be in a central location to the village downtown, where people can easily walk in. The armory is between 1.2 and 1.4 miles from the current station, depending on the route taken, and it’s mostly uphill.

Perrotte said he sees few walk-ins; most people are on bike or come by car.

“I don’t think it’s a great hindrance to people coming to the police department in person,” he said.

He added that the armory would also put them close to the schools and residential areas, next to the Algonquin Apartments.

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APA move

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Williams said there’s no advancement in the APA moving plan right now. He said it’s in the APA’s hands; they’re doing their studies, and the village is waiting for them to reach out with a next step.

Like the emergency services complex, the proposed APA move to Saranac Lake has drawn a lot of controversy.

The APA plans to lease and renovate the existing historic building at 1-3 Main St., construct a new three-story building in the back of the public parking lot on the Lake Street and Petrova Avenue hillside and expand the existing parking lot to 72 spaces.

Last year, Williams said the existing building needs “millions of dollars’ worth of work.”

The three-story building, which used to house the Paul Smith’s Power and Light Company, was built by the son of the legendary Adirondack guide and hotelier Paul Smith in 1927. The name of that company is still engraved on the side of the building. The village bought the property in 1986.

The first and second floors were previously rented to Franklin County for office space. Village Code Enforcement Officer Chris McClatchie said the county moved out after their lease expired in June and currently, the police are the only ones in the building.

In 2022, the APA received $29 million through the state budget for a new headquarters.

At the time, APA spokesperson Keith McKeever told the Enterprise the APA’s current building is poorly designed and in bad condition; he didn’t think it wouldn’t be cost-effective to renovate it for the agency’s needs. The APA has met in a small, 1950s-era log cabin for the last 50 years on a campus four miles away from Saranac Lake that it shares with New York State Police and the state Department of Environmental Conservation in Ray Brook, colloquially referred to as “Little Albany.”

“Load-bearing structural beams are rotting. The cinder block foundation is deteriorating. The 18-year-old HVAC system cannot be repaired without removing walls,” McKeever wrote last year.

But last summer, a set of three letters and an internal APA poll showed a divide on public and state staff opinion over the proposed move.

Of the APA’s 44 staff at the time, 36 were surveyed and a majority either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposed move. Some said they were supportive of the move and a chunk were neutral on the issue.

Saranac Lake’s Downtown Advisory Board gave its “enthusiastic support” for the relocation project saying it would have a significant economic impact.

Steve Erman, a member of the Saranac Lake Affordable Housing Task Force, sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul voicing “strong opposition” to the plan, contending that the proposed space would be better suited for much-needed housing. The chair of that task force said at the time that other members found Erman’s thoughts “sound” and that the village board should take his concerns into consideration, but the members did not co-sign his letter.

A group of 19 former APA employees and board members also wrote a letter to Hochul expressing opposition to the move from the agency’s current headquarters in Ray Brook and questioning the transparency and ethics of the process that led to this site being chosen for the new headquarters.

An Enterprise straw poll asking the community’s thoughts on the plan in June received 552 responses and had a two-vote gap between the number of respondents who said they liked the plan and those that didn’t. While 7% of respondents were undecided, 46% liked the plan and 47% did not.

This poll was not scientific and its results represent only the opinions of internet users who chose to participate.

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(CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct information about the Saranac Lake Affordable Housing Task Force.)