State police will build a new headquarters in southeast Idaho sometime next year.
The Idaho State Journal reports that the state legislature authorized $5.4 million to construct a new 24,000-square-foot facility in Pocatello.
Regional state police captain Eric Dayley said four police divisions are currently housed in three separate buildings in the city. The new building would consolidate the patrol, investigations and training departments and the forensic laboratory in one location.
Dayley said he expects the move to save the state money.
The project is scheduled to begin in August and be finished by 2016.
The building that currently contains the Pocatello forensic division was never designed to hold a lab.
Dayley said the new building will have a modern lab for the Pocatello division, which specializes in toxicology.