A revolutionary 10,000-square-foot Police Station in Southside will change policing in the east end, a Ministry of Works and Engineering and Housing (W&E) architect said yesterday.

The new Eastern Division station, currently being built by developer Gilbert Lopes, is expected to be handed over to Police next month and will be operational by summer.

W&E senior architect Lawrence Brady said Police were moving away from physically lining up suspects to Video Identification Parade Electronic Recording (VIPER).

?Instead of the old way of doing line-ups to identify who the culprit may be, what they do is take a picture of you and try and identify it with all the database of people and then it?s shown to victim,? Mr. Brady said.

There will also be a new breathalyser unit. Currently there is only one breathalyser in Hamilton.

Mr. Brady gave a tour of the new station ? converted from a Bermuda Land Development Company (BLDC) public works building on Southside Road ? to The Royal Gazette with Works and Engineering and Housing Minister Sen. David Burch yesterday.

A diesel generator is in place in case of power outages and all interview rooms at the new station were wired up for video and audio. There are six new holding cells and because of new legislation women and juveniles will be held in a different areas of the station.

?It includes is a lot of additional space that they never had in St. George?s,? Mr. Brady said. ?In St. George?s their report room was their lunch room which was their locker room. Everything is separate because confidentiality is an important thing for the Police and how they handle evidence. It?s bringing the whole Department up to another level.?

Police were still expected to use the current Airport station, but at Southside there is a ?dry cell? with no toilet to hold people suspected of swallowing drugs.

There will also be two ?command rooms? in case there is an incident in St. George?s or the Airport, he said.

?They can be set up completely away from everyone else so that you don?t get crossing over or different activities,? he said.

There will be a glass partition for suspects to communicate with lawyers but it will not be possible to pass items through them.