The New Orleans Police Department is asking city leaders to budget $37 million to replace the department’s headquarters, authorities said Wednesday morning.

“We know we need a new building, and we need it fast,” said NOPD Deputy Superintendent Christopher Goodly in a budget meeting with city planning officials. “It’s basically time to consider looking at a new headquarters instead of spending the resources to repair a dilapidated building.”

Goodly said the aging building has developed numerous issues. Officers and staff regularly complain about the air quality in the building, and the elevators frequently need repair. The adjacent parking garage is also developing structural issues, he said.

As security standards have increased, the department has struggled to retrofit the building to meet prevent unauthorized entry, Goodly said. One security breach recently led to an intruder being subdued with a Taser, Goodly said.

“It’s not designed to handle all the post-9/11, post-Katrina safety mandates that we have,” Goodly said.

The new building would probably need on a different site than the current headquarters, so that officers could continue to work during construction, officials said. No site has been identified, officials said, but it would likely need to be in the same general area of Mid-City with the other criminal-justice buildings such as the jail and the courthouse, they said.

The $37 million price tag is merely an estimate based on the size of the current building, they said, and does not include any money for land acquisition. The department believes construction will likely cost an average of $350 per square foot, because of much of the space resembles standard offices.

Goodly presented the department’s request to city planners on Wednesday morning as part of the city’s annual budgeting process, in which each city agency presents a wish-list of sorts for its next five years of building needs. City planners asked Goodly few questions about the project, mostly questioning the basic premise of building a new headquarters instead of renovating the existing one.

Each renovation or repair, Goodly replied, is an expenditure that simply forces the department to remain longer in a building that has become outdated.

“It’s served its purpose and it’s served it well,” Goodly said. “But if we’re forward thinking and we’re going to be this modern police department, we have to really consider how much we’re going to invest in the building.”