Pittsburgh looks to extend police headquarters lease for $1.3M

Pittsburgh officials are considering a six-year lease extension for the police bureau’s headquarters for more than $1.3 million per year.

The city has leased the Western Avenue location in Pittsburgh’s Chateau neighborhood since it sold the prior police headquarters building in 2002. The old site is now a parklet near the Boulevard of the Allies ramp and PNC’s corporate building in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Police moved into their current headquarters in 2003. The lease is set to expire at the end of the year.

The city currently pays about $1.5 million per year for the space. It has paid as low as $1.26 million annually, according to legislation introduced to City Council Tuesday.

Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration last year led a similar measure to extend the lease agreement. City Council scrapped that legislation once officials realized they had another year remaining on the existing lease.

The measure will come before City Council next week for further discussion. Council could take a preliminary vote as early as next week and a final vote as soon as the following week.

City officials had previously pitched the idea of ultimately moving police headquarters to a sprawling public safety training facility that was to be built in the city’s Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood. That project has stalled as officials said they don’t have the funding for the project, which has been estimated to cost well over $100 million.