Is The Best Plan for a New Shreveport Police Headquarters Already Dead?

At Tuesday's Shreveport City Council meeting, District D Councilman Grayson Boucher seemed to say that the plan to renovate the empty Sears building at Mall St. Vincent into a new headquarters for the Shreveport Police Department is dead.

Boucher, who had been working with a pair of local architects (Brian McNew and Jeff Spikes) about a preliminary renovation plan, told the council, "I talked to both...about the Sears building and neither have heard anything from police administration. I'm assuming after reading the interview (with SPD Chief Ben Raymond) in The Times that it's probably not an option for us. So, I'm not going to go any further with this and waste the architects time, digging into this any more unless the administration tells me (to) move forward.

"In my opinion the interview...with Chief Raymond pretty much said it's a dead deal. But I will say this. We have got to start making a plan...because I am overwhelmingly hearing, 'Wherever we put this police station, we have to have a plan."

Boucher was referring to statements made by Raymond to The Times in which the Chief seemed lukewarm at best to the idea of renovating the currently empty Southern Avenue structure.

"I think there's just a lot of questions that still need to be worked out with the Sears building," Raymond told The Times. "Our preferred plan is still going to be new construction. But that being said, I'm not opposed to a Sears building or something if it's going to meet our needs."