FERRIDAY — Over the next few weeks, the Ferriday Police Department will be moving into a new home, Mayor Sherrie Jacobs said Friday.

Officials plan to move police department into the town-owned Ferriday Shopping Center off E.E. Wallace Boulevard, which is the largest unit in the shopping center. The center is located on the north side of town near Riverland Medical Center. Fresenius Dialysis Center is one of the current tenants  in the center.

Jacobs said the building the department is in now is insufficient and small, as rooms have been closed off due to mildew and mold. The air conditioning system has also had problems over the summer, causing officers to be miserable, Jacobs said.

“The building has outlived its usefulness — it is just a mess,” she said. “The smell of mold is so strong. It just isn’t good for their health.”

Jacobs said the town has put in new carpeting, painting and has two of the unit’s three sections ready for occupation. All that waits, Jacobs said, is for the Ferriday Board of Aldermen to approve a contractor to come in and set up the computer and IT systems.

The next board meeting will be 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11, and Jacobs said she anticipates it would take up to another two weeks to get the police department moved in.

Jacobs said businesses are beginning to lease units in the center, and she said she thinks the police department’s next-door location would be good for business.

“If I were going to open up a business, I would want to be there where the police are,” Jacobs said. “It makes the businesses and the people more safe.”

The back third of the unit, Jacobs said, the town would complete at a later date when more funding is in. Jacobs said she has also floated the idea of moving the parish’s Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness office in.

Parish agency director Payne Scott said the location would provide more space than his office in the courthouse to conduct emergency operations. Scott said it would also be a more central location in the parish.

While Scott said he had no definite plans to move, he said he was looking into grants that could facilitate a move.

Jacobs said the town plans to tear down the old police station and had no immediate plans for putting anything in that location at this time.