BRUNSWICK

The Town Council on Monday will consider the next step toward a land deal that would put in place all the pieces to build a new police station.

On July 9, the Town Council unanimously approved design and financing plans to borrow $5.5 million for construction of a new police station at the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets.

The property at that site, however, is still owned by the Brunswick Development Corp., which was established in February 1995 when the corporation borrowed $1.7 million from the town and built the Brunswick Technologies building. After repaying the town, BDC then sold the building for $3.1 million and continues to manage those funds.

Two town councilors, Town Manager Gary Brown, Finance Director John Eldridge and three community representatives make up the BDC board.

Town officials plan to exchange with the BDC its current offices and police station at 28 Federal St. for the Pleasant and Stanwood property, but zoning at the Federal Street location would not allow for office uses after the town vacates the building.

According to a July 16 memo from Brown, who serves as an ex-officio member of the BDC, the BDC requested that the town amend its zoning ordinance to allow office uses after municipal employees move from the building.

Following a deal with Bowdoin College that exchanged the former Longfellow School for the downtown McLellan Building, municipal officials plan to relocate the town office to the McLellan Building in 2014.

In an email, Brown wrote that an appraisal on the property at 28 Federal St. is still in the works and a report is expected by the end of the month.

Brown said that the BDC intends to make the trade with the town, pending a zoning change that would allow the building’s continued use for offices.

A memo from Anna Breinich, Brunswick’s director of planning and development, outlines the Town Council’s options in making the change to accommodate that request.

Currently, the district encompassing Federal Street is zoned Town Residential-2, or TR-2, which only allows single-family and multi-family residential uses, with exceptions for municipal facilities.

Breinich wrote that the town could either rezone the west side of Federal Street, between Mason and Center streets, to what is know as TR-1 zoning, allowing some non-residential uses.

The Town Council also could amend the facilities standards to allow the current use of the municipal facility to be extended as “a legally established nonconforming use.”

In late 2010, the town attempted to purchase the property by passing a bond ordinance to borrow more than $1 million for that purpose.

After residents collected enough petition signatures to force a referendum on the land purchase bond, town councilors rescinded their approval and reconfigured — by adding more citizen representatives — the committee assigned to study the police station project.

Earlier this year, that committee unanimously recommended building a new police station at the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets.

After stating intentions to lead a similar petition to trigger a referendum on the borrowing plan to build the new station, former town councilor Karen Klatt, who led the 2010 petition drive, said this week that she will not do so.

Any petition of the project would have to be requested by five residents and submitted to the Town Council with signatures of 782 voters by July 29.

In April 2011, the Town Council unanimously authorized council chairwoman Joanne King to approach the Brunswick Development Corp., of which she is a member, to help purchase property for the police station.

In December 2011, BDC president Larissa Darcy stated in a letter to the Town Council that the entity’s “intentions are limited to providing these properties to the town of Brunswick for the police station project.”

Earlier this month, Brown said that construction on the project, if the council’s borrowing proposal stands with no petition challenge, could start as early as October of this year.