NARRAGANSETT — The roof leaks. The detention cells are not up to code. Some offices are too small, others are too large.

There’s also a shortage of parking space.

The public safety building on Caswell Street, in the parking-starved Pier section of town, has housed the community’s police and fire departments for about 30 years. The building has grown from one floor to two during that time, but town officials say it is no longer up to the task.

The solution is to build a larger one that would have space for today’s needs and room to grow, says Town Manager Jeffry Ceasrine.

But the challenge, so far, has been finding a place to build.

Last year there was talk of someday building near the Dillon Rotary, but the land the town was eyeing, on Kingstown Road, is not available, Ceasrine said. The location would have been ideal, with its visibility, central location and access to main roads — qualities the town wants as it continues the search for a site.

“It keeps it near the center of town,” Ceasrine said.

According to a recent study by Robinson Green Beretta Corp., the town needs a building with about 40,000 square feet of floor space — about a 77-percent increase over the existing building, which has about 23,000 square feet. A building that size would require about three acres, more than double the lot size of the existing building, the study concludes.

With four bays for the Fire Department, a designated crime lab and a shared gymnasium, among many other amenities, the study concludes a new building would cost about $18.8 million, not counting costs for land and communications equipment. At that price, the town would have to borrow money and seek the approval of voters.

In the meantime, the police and fire departments are trying to make do.

Police Chief Joseph T. Little Jr. said his concerns include inadequate cell space, a lack of public parking spaces, a layout that requires detectives work to work in different parts of the building and a leaky roof that has resulted in wet phones and radios.

“It’s just a horrible situation,” he said.

Little strongly agreed with one of the key conclusions of the study — that the town needs a bigger building site. Even if the existing building were torn down and rebuilt, he said, there would not be enough land to provide what’s needed.

“We still, in my opinion, wouldn’t have adequate space and you’re never going to get beyond the fact that you don’t have adequate space,” he said.

There was speculation last year that should a new public safety building be constructed, the land on which the existing building sits could be used to provide more parking for the Pier area — perhaps the spaces that Gilbane Development Co. insists it needs if it is to follow the town’s wishes and build apartments on top of three commercial buildings in the adjacent Pier Village Marketplace. The town and Gilbane agreed two years ago that Gilbane would investigate the possibility of building mixed-use structures, but the company said this spring that the plan won’t work unless additional parking is found.

Ceasrine said the town might still pursue parking on the existing site should a new public safety headquarters be built.

redgar@projo.com