The future police detachment will have a new, larger and logistically superior location in the northwest corner of the Heartland neighbourhood.

Town council approved swapping land within the subdivision with Apex Land and are now finalizing the purchase of a 4.66-acre parcel that is expected to meet the current and future needs of a growing community. 

The detachment will be located on the corner of Horse Creek Road and Hwy. 1A and being further removed from the Hwy. 1A and Hwy. 22 interchange and having a superior grade differential makes it a preferred location. There are also traffic lights at the intersection.

The town will be spending an additional $1,095,500 for the larger lot after swapping out their current holding. The price was $700,000 per acre, the same price as the land previously purchased, and the total land costs for the detachment is now $3.26 million, up from the original $1.47 million for the original two-acre parcel.

The land has already subdivided but will need to be rezoned from multi-family to public service. That application will be coming back to council in the near future.

Now that the location is all but finalized, the next step is to complete the design of the long overdue new detachment. RCMP officers are currently crammed into a 1st Ave. E. building. The new detachment will not only serve the RCMP but other enforcement teams, including the town bylaw officers and Alberta Sheriffs.

According to timelines in the recent update to the town's 10-year strategy for capital spending, the project has an estimated total cost of $17.4 million that will be obtained from long-term debenture borrowing. The land was funded from $1.4 million in Municipal Sustainability Initiative capital funding and $1,862,000 from the police debt servicing reserve, which will contribute $840,000 annually for debt servicing.

The previous site had already been expanded by one acre last September but the land title never changed hands. The original 2-acre parcel was purchased in October 2016.