$1.6M Demolition Set for Former Fall River Police Headquarters After 30 Years

The former police headquarters at 158 Bedford Street has been vacant and derelict for nearly 30 years, but that could change any day now as demolition plans are nearly complete for the $1.6 million project.

“The city has signed the contract with the demolition company and what’s called a non-traditional work plan needs to be completed by a private company,” said city building inspector Glenn Hathaway.

The building, constructed around 1915, is structurally unsafe and environmentally riddled with asbestos.

Hathaway said because of the condition of the building, the asbestos cannot be remediated separately from the demolition because of safety concerns.

“There are life safety issues so everything in the building is hot. So, they call it a non-traditional workplan by DEP regulations,” said Hathaway.

The company hired by the city to create a plan that will direct the demolition company on how to safely take the building down, has 10 days to complete it. Then the Department of Environmental Protection has 10 days to approve the plan.

The former police station is considered a Brownfield property that sits on approximately .35 acres with the building at 47,920 square feet.

Logistical challenges

“There’s a little bit of logistics here because of the Central Fire Station across the street,” said Hathaway.

During the demolition, Hathaway will be closing Bedford Street from Troy to Seabury streets. Fire apparatus and rescue trucks will be able to use the street but will travel east in the opposite direction of the one-way thoroughfare. 

“This is going to take place until they can get their machinery off the roadway,” said Hathaway.

As the demolition proceeds, trucks collecting the contaminated debris will be stationed on High Street, which will also be closed from Bedford to Bank streets. The trucks will travel east on Bedford once loaded to the highway.

Depending on the non-traditional work plan, Hathaway said more streets could be closed around the police station and anticipated the work could take about five days, “if that.”

Hathaway said the four-story building will be knocked down to the first-floor level and maintain the basement area.

So far, the city has been talking about turning the property into city parking.

Additional parking is needed in the downtown area with the boom in market rate housing and the generous waivers given by the Fall River Zoning Board of Appeals regarding ordinances that govern parking minimums for such projects.

History of redevelopment nightmares

Try as they might since 1997, when the police department moved into its new headquarters on Pleasant Street, administration after administration failed to see any successful redevelopment despite the property passing through a number of private owners.

The first time, the city sold the property to John M. Pavao, a city resident, ex-con and Florida real estate developer during the former Mayor Edward Lambert’s administration for $160,000. That was after the City Council Committee on Real Estate rejected a $25,000 bid from city developer Tony Cordeiro, who intended to demolish it to make way for a parking lot.

In a pair of questionable deals, the property was “flipped” several times, eventually being sold to another Florida developer in June 2008 for $1.28 million. The city got it back that time after the developer owed back taxes on the Bedford station.

More recently the city once again was forced to retake ownership after a Chelsea-based developer purchased the dilapidated property for $10,000 in 2021 to redevelop the building into market rate apartments. In 2023, Hathaway became concerned about the structural integrity of the building and ordered a structural engineering report.

In late 2024, the developer deeded the property back to the city.