An artist’s rendering shows what Tamaqua’s new police station and community center will look like when work is complete.

The Tamaqua Area Community Partnership shared the graphic, along with another of the dual use building’s spacious parking area.

The proposed station and center will be housed inside the former Moose building at 133 E. Broad St.

Micah Gursky, executive director of the partnership, said the organization hopes to have the project out for bids this year and plans work to start in 2024.

The partnership purchased the building early last year, along with adjoining parcels on East Mauch Chunk and Pine streets. Blighted buildings on those properties have since been leveled to make way for a 36-space parking lot.

Plans are to have space in the 10,000 square-foot building for a two-story, state-of-the-art police department. The police department is headquartered at the Tamaqua Municipal building, 320 E. Broad St., which also houses borough offices and borough hall. The building was constructed as the Tamaqua Armory around 1913, according to borough records.

The community center will be in a different area of the building, which had been vacant for decades.

To help cover the project, the partnership will use a $2 million grant that it received in 2021 from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program. Recently retired state Rep. Jerry Knowles helped secure the grant. Knowles, who worked as a Tamaqua police officer beginning in 1972, said the department hadn’t changed much since he was employed there.